A Harvard senior who went viral for her graduation speech, in which she criticized the school for its response to pro-Palestine protests, has shared new details about the lead-up to the moment, including how she planned the addendum the night before.
In a dramatic moment at Harvard’s university wide commencement last week, student speaker Shruthi Kumar, 22, pulled a folded note card she had stowed away in her gown and addressed the university’s decision to deny 13 fellow seniors their degrees because of their involvement in a pro-Palestine encampment on campus.
“This semester, our freedom of speech and our expressions of solidarity became punishable leaving our graduations uncertain. As I stand before you today, I must take a moment to recognize my peers: the 13 undergraduates in the class of 2024 who will not graduate today,” she said.
“The students had spoken, the faculty had spoken. Harvard, do you hear us?” she continued, receiving thunderous applause and standing ovations from many members of the crowd.
The clip, originally captured in a university recording of the event, has reached millions of views after it made the rounds on social media over the past week.
Kumar told NBC News that she had written and practiced the speech over the course of a few months with the help of a committee of other students and faculty. Her speech, “The Power of Not Knowing,” was selected by the university over dozens of others.
But the evening before graduation day, Harvard announced its decision not to confer the degrees of 13 students “who are not in good standing,” overturning an earlier decision by a faculty body that recommended they should indeed be allowed to graduate.
“I knew that this was not just, it was not fair, and that I needed to say something,” said Kumar, who graduated with a double major in the history of science and economics. “I spent a lot of time talking to students that evening. And then at night, around 11:30, I prepared this note card.”
She said she shared the revisions with two faculty advisers, but the university deans who had previously approved her speech wasn’t aware she was making changes — and heard the new version for the first time as she delivered it to a crowd of tens of thousands.
“I was worried I’d be silenced or my mic would be cut,” she said. “Thankfully, none of that happened. I’m glad I was allowed the opportunity to say what I needed to say. But looking back at the video, it’s clear faculty are not very pleased.”
Harvard’s student encampment, like the many that were set up on campuses across the nation in the last few months, protested the tens of thousands of civilian deaths killed in Israel’s strikes on Gaza and called for their university to divest from financially supporting of Israel.
“It’s not just Harvard students that are setting up encampments,” she said. “Whether it’s what people think to be a very liberal university on the East Coast, or a state school from Nebraska, there are protests everywhere, from different types of people, different regions in the U.S. That diversity itself should show that there’s some truth to what we’re speaking.”
Hundreds of undergraduate students walked out of Harvard College’s graduation ceremony on last Thursday, also in protest of the 13 students who were barred from graduating.
Though she didn’t participate in the encampment, Kumar said her name appeared on a mass list of Harvard students doxxed by pro-Israel groups in the fall, which she touched upon in her speech.
She said her parents, who came from her home state of Nebraska to watch her graduate, were worried that her speech might draw similar backlash or violence. Kumar said that, so far, the response has only been positive from both the university and the massive international audience she’s now reached.
The past week has been a whirlwind, she said, but now back home, she’s excited to take a few months off traveling and exploring entrepreneurship before looking for job opportunities. She hopes to apply to grad school next year.
“I didn’t know it would blow up in this way. I didn’t know it would become such a moment,” she said. “I just knew I had to say something, and I did.”
