NYU Pulls Diploma After Commencement Speech

NEW YORK, NY., May 16, 2025 - New York University has withheld the diploma of graduating student Logan Rozos, the chosen student speaker for the Gallatin School ceremony, after he used his three-minute address to condemn what he called Israel’s “genocide” in Gaza and U.S. complicity.

Rozos opened by saying the “only thing that is appropriate” was to acknowledge the “atrocities currently happening in Palestine,” drawing loud applause, some boos and a shouted “bull----!” from the crowd. He went on to accuse the United States of funding the war and urged “people of conscience” to oppose it.

Within hours the university issued an apology to attendees, removed Rozos’s online profile and announced it would withhold his degree while pursuing disciplinary action, asserting he “lied about the speech he was going to deliver” and misused his platform for one-sided politics.

Pro-Israel organizations, including the Anti-Defamation League, praised NYU’s response, while civil-rights and Muslim-advocacy groups such as CAIR denounced the move and called on the school to drop sanctions. The clash comes after NYU tightened its conduct code last year, labeling some anti-Zionist language discriminatory, and amid heightened federal scrutiny of campus speech on Israel-Palestine under the Trump administration’s antisemitism task force.

The episode underscores intensifying free-speech battles on U.S. campuses, where pro-Palestinian activism has led to arrests, disciplinary probes and loss of federal funding for some universities.

*Sources:

*https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2025/05/16/logan-rozos-nyu-commencement-palestine-speech/