Democrats outnumbered Republicans more than 6-to-1 among commencement speakers at top U.S. colleges this year, according to a new report examining graduation ceremonies at elite universities across the country.
The College Fix found that Democratic or Democratic-leaning speakers made up 86% of partisan commencement speakers at schools ranked in U.S. News & World Report’s top 100 universities.
“The Fix reviewed public statements and donation records to determine the political leanings of speakers,” The College Fix reported Friday. “The numbers only include the speakers at either the main commencement ceremony, or if there are multiple events, the undergraduate ceremonies. Other speakers did not publicly indicate a political leaning and were counted as not applicable in the analysis.”
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The six Republican or right-leaning commencement speakers that The College Fix identified include Arthur Brooks, former president of the American Enterprise Institute, who gave Vanderbilt University’s commencement address on May 7; Dario Gil, undersecretary for science at the Department of Energy under President Donald Trump, gave the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute commencement address on May 16; and former University of Texas quarterback and NFL player Colt McCoy gave The University of Texas at Austin’s commencement address on May 9.
Francis Fukuyama, who was identified as a conservative speaker by The College Fix even though he reportedly endorsed former President Barack Obama for president in 2008, was the graduation speaker at William & Mary University’s commencement ceremony on May 15. Eric Dickerson, a former Southern Methodist University running back, was SMU’s commencement speaker on May 16, and U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee will deliver Yeshiva University’s commencement address on May 28.
Democratic commencement speakers this year identified by The College Fix included Democratic New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill, who will give the New Jersey Institute of Technology’s commencement address; Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who addressed Michigan State University; and Democratic Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger, who gave Virginia Tech’s graduation address.
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Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., gave Georgia Tech’s commencement speech.
Other Democratic commencement speakers this year included Dee Dee Myers, former President Bill Clinton’s White House Press Secretary, at Santa Clara University; Alison LaCroix, former President Joe Biden’s appointment to the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court, at the University of Illinois-Chicago; and Alison Nathan, U.S. circuit judge for the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, nominated by Joe Biden in 2021 and identified as the second openly LGBTQ+ woman to serve on a federal circuit court, at the University of California Irvine.
Democratic speakers from the entertainment sector include actresses Kristin Davis at University of Colorado Boulder, Sarah Jessica Parker at Northwestern University, Jane Lynch at Cornell University, and William Adams, a singer and rapper known as “will.i.am,” gave Worcester Polytechnic Institute’s commencement address.
Democratic authors identified by The Fix giving commencement speeches included James Patterson at the University of Wisconsin-Madison; John Green at Rice University; Xochitl Gonzalez at Brown University; and Min Jin Lee at Yale University.
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Conservative speakers have routinely faced hostility on campuses. Chloe Cole announced last week that she was canceling a scheduled University of Washington speech after citing alleged threats from Antifa.
In April, Republican Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette told Fox News Digital that South Carolina State University rescinded their invite for her to give a commencement speech because she supports President Trump.
