Graduates carrying Palestinian flags left the stadium as the comic was being introduced. Duke University’s commencement saw a minor disruption when students protesting the war in Gaza walked out before Jerry Seinfeld spoke.
Video from Sunday’s event in Durham, North Carolina, showed about 30 students in cap and gown get up and leave their graduation ceremony as Seinfeld was introduced by Duke President Vincent Price.
Chants of “Free, free Palestine” could be heard as students carried the state’s green, red and black flag out of the football stadium.
In footage shared on social media, the audience could be heard booing, though it was unclear if the shouts were directed at Seinfeld or the protestors, which appeared to be a sliver of the 7,000 graduates in attendance.
Also audible were chants and jeers of “Jerry,” a reaction which sounded split between support and mockery of the sitcom star.
Seinfeld, who also received an honorary doctorate degree from the school on Sunday, has been a staunch supporter of Israel amid its response to the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas.
He’s posted on social media in solidarity with Israel several times since last fall’s incursion, and in December, the “Bee Movie” voice traveled to Tel Aviv to meet with the families of hostages captured by Hamas.
I think elite schools are just first in line in terms of being political betrayers of the actual substantive left. The interests of those schools and the families that tend to be able to afford to send their children there just tend to be aligned with the interests of capital as a whole.
I forget whether it was the Koch brothers or other fracking billionaires who provided the seed money for Ben Shapiro to set up The Daily wire, but no doubt those sorts of people are financially tied to him being their mouthpiece.
Money talks, and this is all a substantial element of why we live in a two party system, even though the majority always seems like left leaning liberals… Because the free market right have a greater level of class interests with the wealthy, and so can afford greater platforms in culture and in researching how to manipulate the political theatre of opinion.
EDIT: Yeah, it was the Wilks brothers (fracking billionaires) who funded the set up of The Daily Wire. They also donate millions to PragerU. I think one of the Wilks brothers has his own church now too.
Thanks for that well-thought out comment. I think you’re right, and sites of knowledge/idea production are probably always targets of that kind of injection of right wing interests to some extent.
Yeah, I think so. Traditionally universities have swung left, as intellectuals and well researched people tend to swing that way, but within the last couple of decades (as more public institutions have become more privatised and more reliant on private interests) the rightwing figures have had greater success and gaining influence in these institutions
Here’s a 2019 episode from a podcast (the Know Your Enemy podcast) which details some of Charles Koch’s techniques and success in this area:
https://www.dissentmagazine.org/blog/know-your-enemy-8-kochd-out/
Thanks! Those sources look interesting.
I guess this has probably paralleled the neoliberal makeover of university labour and the increased use of a casualized/precariat academic workforce we’ve seen in english-speaking academia in the last 20 years as well.
Edit: I hadn’t really thought much about the connection but I can see how a more neoliberal labour force is attractive to private interests. And we saw the very real way the latter can shape knowledge production when Gates held Oxford’s feet to the fire over their COVID vaccination IP.