EDU launches petition to reinstate student speakers at Commencement

A group of students affiliated with the academic freedom organization Education and Democracy United (EDU) launched a Change.org petition on Thursday to reinstate student speakers at Commencement. The petition comes in response to the University’s recent removal of student speakers at departmental commencement ceremonies.

History department chair Jessica Riskin broke the initial news in a letter to The Daily in Novemeber. Now, Georgia Allen ’28, Owen Rowe ’28, Gauri Kathula ’29 and Turner Van Slyke ’28 of EDU are seeking to reverse the decision. As of Tuesday, their petition has collected just over 200 signatures. The students also authored an article in The Daily last week expressing their argument for the importance of student speakers.

“Students are the most important stakeholders,” Van Slyke said, emphasizing the diverse viewpoints that come with student speakers.

“Student discourse on campus is one of the highest forms of gratitude between students and their university,” Kathula added. “It demonstrates how much students here value the University… as this catalyst for change.”

The four framed the issue as part of a broader national debate over free speech and academic freedom on college campuses.

“We’ve seen these bans at other universities, in a time where free speech in general… is being restricted,” Allen said. Other universities that have banned or punished student speakers include Columbia University and George Washington University.

Though the petitioners acknowledged the possibility Commencement speech may contain potentially devise content, they argued that it pales in comparison to their benefits.

“They should give students a platform to voice their thoughts and opinions, and only when those thoughts and opinions are dangerous, should they react, rather than preemptively banning speech,” Allen said. 

EDU — which was founded in March 2025 by Van Slyke, James Intriligator, a mechanical engineering professor at Tufts University and Cameron Conner, a community organizer at Tufts — has been supported in their efforts by other student organizations, including a joint resolution unanimously passed by the Undergraduate Senate (UGS) and Graduate Student Council (GSC). The resolution argues that the administration’s recent decision to remove student commencement speakers was implemented quietly and without meaningful consultation. 

The resolution categorizes commencement as a student-centered academic ritual and that a blanket, preemptive ban on student speakers is disproportionate given Stanford’s stated commitments to freedom of expression, shared governance, and democratic participation. It also points to existing University policies that already address disruptive or harmful speech, as well as peer institutions that respond to concerns on a case-by-case basis rather than through categorical bans.

In an email to The Daily, University spokesperson Angie Davis wrote that the guidance applies only to Humanities & Sciences departmental diploma ceremonies and is not a University-wide policy. 

According to the UGS, the resolution was introduced at the request of the EDU organizers. UGS Chair David Sengthay ’26 described the resolution as part of the Senate’s responsibility to use its “formal tools — resolutions, shared governance routing, and official communications — to support student-led activism when students ask and when the issue clearly affects students.”

“From the student government side, we were not consulted before implementation or shown documentation of a structured consultative process,” Sengthay said.

He added that informal explanations have centered on concerns about controversy or discomfort, but noted, “We have not received documentation showing specific legal exposure, donor pressure or quantified safety risk that would justify a preemptive, across-the-board ban.”

Davis wrote that “each of Stanford’s seven schools has different traditions and practices for their school or department ceremonies, some of which involve student speakers and some of which do not.” She did not address questions about the rationale, decision-making process or consultation behind the Humanities & Sciences guidance.

Despite the petition, Van Slyke was sympathetic to the perspective of the University, describing the administration as “under a tremendous amount of pressure right now.” He also expressed an interest in working with administrators.

“If student commencement speakers were reinstated, I think that would be a powerful message to the students of Stanford that they matter, their education matters, and that they are valued members of this community,” he said.  

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