A Harvard senior who went viral for her graduation speech, in which she criticized the school for its response to pro-Palestine protests, has shared new details about the lead-up to the moment, including how she planned the addendum the night before.
In a dramatic moment at Harvard’s university wide commencement last week, student speaker Shruthi Kumar, 22, pulled a folded note card she had stowed away in her gown and addressed the university’s decision to deny 13 fellow seniors their degrees because of their involvement in a pro-Palestine encampment on campus.
“This semester, our freedom of speech and our expressions of solidarity became punishable leaving our graduations uncertain. As I stand before you today, I must take a moment to recognize my peers: the 13 undergraduates in the class of 2024 who will not graduate today,” she said.
“The students had spoken, the faculty had spoken. Harvard, do you hear us?” she continued, receiving thunderous applause and standing ovations from many members of the crowd.
The clip, originally captured in a university recording of the event, has reached millions of views after it made the rounds on social media over the past week.
Kumar told NBC News that she had written and practiced the speech over the course of a few months with the help of a committee of other students and faculty. Her speech, “The Power of Not Knowing,” was selected by the university over dozens of others.
But the evening before graduation day, Harvard announced its decision not to confer the degrees of 13 students “who are not in good standing,” overturning an earlier decision by a faculty body that recommended they should indeed be allowed to graduate.
“I knew that this was not just, it was not fair, and that I needed to say something,” said Kumar, who graduated with a double major in the history of science and economics. “I spent a lot of time talking to students that evening. And then at night, around 11:30, I prepared this note…
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