Middlebury College’s student commencement speaker encouraged her fellow graduates and alumni to pull their donations and instead support the people of Gaza during her speech.
Film, media, culture and environmental studies major Faith Wood was chosen among a committee of students to represent the graduating class on Saturday with a final address. She spoke to the class wearing a rainbow scarf and keffiyeh and largely mourned the state of Gazan cities.
She suggested holding the school accountable for what she claims is the school’s culpability in the suffering of Gaza through their pocketbooks.
Middlebury College held a graduation ceremony on Saturday. (Toby Talbot / AP)
“Being an alum of Middlebury College gives you power in this world. Leveraging that collective power in this room can be that difference. First step, Middlebury. Then, in the world,” Wood said. “Here’s one thing you can do. Open up the pamphlets people have been handing out and pledge to donate any money you would have to Middlebury to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.”
She concluded, “Until Middlebury demonstrates its commitment to prioritizing education here and everywhere over profit through divestment from war profiteering, there is nothing as whole as a broken heart. Loving Middlebury means holding it and ourselves accountable to our promises. To love means to grow together. That is what it’s going to take.”
Earlier in her speech, Wood called out the school for standing “tall and pretty” while schools in Gaza are destroyed.
Senior Faith Wood represented her class during the commencement ceremony. (iStock)
“There is simply nothing we as students at one of the eleven NESCACs (New England Small College Athletic Conference) deserve that students of the eleven institutions of higher education in Gaza do not also deserve,” Wood said.
She also lamented the “heartbreaking” situation she and her fellow students find themselves in after President Donald Trump returned to office.
“We are literally graduating the same month a fascist has taken office. Within 11 days, he has pulled out of Paris Climate Agreement for the second time, denied the existence of trans people and unleashed a slew of ICE agents to arrest an average thousand people every single day since they began,” Wood said.
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Fox News Digital reached out to Middlebury College for a comment.
Middlebury College faced a lawsuit last year over its alleged failure to protect Jewish students. (Getty/Evidence in filing from StandWithUs Center for Legal Justice )
Last year, Fox News Digital reported that the StandWithUs (SWU) organization filed a lawsuit against Middlebury College alleging that the school “failed egregiously to provide adequate protection for Jewish students seeking to remedy persistent antisemitic bigotry on campus.” Students at Middlebury also requested to remain anonymous on their comments out of fear of retaliation.
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