Class of 2026 Deserves a Better Commencement Speaker
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Letter to Brandeis Administration
As a member of the Brandeis community, I am disappointed by the selection of Sheryl Sandberg as undergraduate commencement speaker. She cannot represent the Class of 2026. Sandberg has proved herself irresponsible and self-serving in both her professional career and her advocacy work. Recent articles in The Justice have covered her involvement in Facebook’s misdeeds from the Cambridge Analytica data scandal to its role in the Myanmar genocide, and detailed her failures as an advocate. In a 2018 commencement speech at MIT, Sandberg argued, that "it's not enough to have a good idea. You have to know when to stop a bad one. This is hard, because technology changes faster than society.” This is an important point that rings hollow when considering Sandberg’s controversy ridden career. While she briefly acknowledges this hypocrisy in her speech, it is hard to imagine what beneficial advice she could have for graduates given her inability to practice what she preaches. For many years, Brandeis has marketed itself as a ‘social justice institution’ that uniquely combines its roles as an R1 research university and small liberal arts college. In the last few months Brandeis has begun unveiling its new marketing campaign which heavily focuses on technology, business, and career-readiness. Sandberg is clearly a commencement speaker chosen to reflect this new Brandeis. But the Class of 2026 did not come to Brandeis for its micro-credential program or new mottos. We came here to receive a well rounded and interdisciplinary education from a school that valued all of its departments, from the humanities to STEM. A commencement speaker for the class of 2026 should reflect the values and experiences that have defined our time here, not the administration’s grandiose new marketing campaign. The Class of 2026 deserves a commencement speaker who is not embroiled in scandal, and who is remotely relevant to our experience at Brandeis. We call on the administration to remove Sheryl Sandberg as undergraduate commencement speaker.
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