Anti-Zionist protesters at Rutgers University, New Brunswick on December 23, 2023. Photo: Kyle Mazza via Reuters Connect

It’s graduation season, and like many others, I attended the Rutgers University engineering graduation ceremony this past week to celebrate my sister’s achievements. However, the celebratory atmosphere was clouded by a bitter campus controversy.

A month ago, Rutgers rescinded its commencement invitation to Rami Elghandour, a university alumnus and the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Arcellx, Inc. Originally slated to speak at the School of Engineering convocation, Elghandour’s invitation was withdrawn after his social media activity came to light. Specifically, he had made inflammatory posts about Israel that the school deemed unacceptable. You can read some of those for yourself here.

The cancellation of his speech was met with predictable volatility. While the decision was supported by many who felt such inflammatory rhetoric was disqualifying for a university representative, it faced immediate pushback from Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and other anti-Israel campus organizations.

A Rutgers student publication quickly interviewed Elghandour, where he labeled the administration’s decision “absolute cowardice and dishonesty,” framing the cancellation as an infringement on free speech and arguing that the situation had been blown out of proportion over a tweet taken out of context.

However, this appeal to “free speech” serves as a convenient shield for the dissemination of vitriolic misinformation. As our nation’s history (and laws) demonstrate, free speech is different than platforming and validating a narrative that is libelous and wrong.

The uproar surrounding Elghandour’s disinvitation, along with the subsequent disruptions by campus activists, exposes a troubling shift in modern anti-Israel campus advocacy: a willingness to completely abandon intellectual integrity for political theater.

Rather than grounding anti-Israel arguments in rigorous academic discourse, activists continue to rely on unverified misinformation, emotional spectacle, and aggressive disruptions because its foundational claims cannot survive the scrutiny of legitimate academic discourse.

A few days following the cancellation, a faction of SJP-led students, clad in graduation regalia and keffiyehs, attempted to enter the Biomedical Engineering building. Their stated goal was to petition Dean Alberto Cuitiño regarding what they labeled “Zionist complicity,” and hold him accountable for an alleged double standard: “protecting controversial speech in some instances while silencing a distinguished alumnus in response to external pressure.”

Yet, the scene resembled an aggressive disruption far more than a formal request, requiring campus police officers to intervene.

This is not an isolated incident; rather, it is a hallmark of the modern anti-Israel campus activist playbook. While most political and activist organizations operate within established bureaucratic channels to seek change, these groups consistently bypass constructive discourse. By its very nature, the movement favors high-pressure tactics designed to force visibility through physical disruptions, aggressive “petitioning,” and inflammatory social media campaigns.

Rather than seeking genuine reform or intellectual debate, they frequently pivot toward intimidation, using cultural symbols to co-opt a graduation ceremony hosted by the very institution that granted them a higher education. I believe that the leaders of the movement encourage this behavior knowing full well that their foundational claims fall apart under serious examination.

A profound level of self-righteousness snakes through this movement in ways that have become a precedent for modern activism. This entitlement goes so far that SJP held a completely separate graduation ceremony, featuring none other than Rami Elghandour as the keynote speaker.

Fortunately, Rutgers stood up to the pressure. By holding the line on Elghandour’s disinvitation, the administration drew a necessary boundary between legitimate dissenting discourse and the reckless amplification of sensational rhetoric imposed on the entire community.

The rest of academia must follow Rutgers’ lead. If higher education is to remain a sanctuary for intellectual rigor, other university administrations must resist loud factions that substitute intimidation for debate. Rutgers has proven that institutions can reject political theater and stand up for objective truth; it is time for the rest of the academic world to do the same.

The author is a CAMERA Fellow at Rutgers University. Opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of CAMERA.