Marium Navid

Your administration’s unwillingness to change Bill Maher’s invitation as Saturday's fall 2014 commencement speaker — as well as your unwillingness to issue a public statement in support of concerns raised by students, staff and faculty — is deeply disturbing.

This is not a matter of free speech — Maher can iterate his beliefs on campus at a debate or club event. This is about granting Bill Maher the honor of being our commencement speaker when he clearly spreads ignorance and intolerance affecting the very people he would be addressing. When the exercise of free speech invokes hatred, we must stand up against that hatred.