U-M faculty slam president’s apology for faculty leader’s commencement speech

More than 1,000 University of Michigan faculty are calling on President Grasso to take down an apology for a speech by Prof. Derek Peterson during commencement
Peterson celebrated student activism over the years during his speech and included pro-Palestinian students
Some thought it was inappropriate

University of Michigan faculty members are calling on the school to uphold its professed values of free speech and institutional neutrality after President Domenico Grasso apologized for comments a faculty leader made about pro-Palestinian student activists during the weekend graduation ceremony.

As of Monday afternoon, more than 1,000 faculty members, staff and students had signed a letter, shared with Bridge Michigan, calling for Grasso to withdraw the apology. Faculty members planned to send the letter to U-M leaders on Monday afternoon.

It comes after Faculty Senate Chair Derek Peterson delivered a speech during Saturday’s commencement in Ann Arbor that heralded student activism over the years and recognized the university’s first Jewish professor. But Peterson’s reference to pro-Palestinian activists riled some in the community and led to Grasso’s public apology.

“We call on President Grasso to withdraw his statement, republish the ceremony recording, and pledge to protect and uphold the University’s own professed principles of free expression, free speech, and neutrality,” the letter says, referring to a policy the university adopted in 2024 that does not allow public officials to take a stance on political or social issues unless they are related to the internal governance of the university.

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“Otherwise, we can only conclude that there is nothing neutral about the institution’s supposed commitment to institutional neutrality, and that the institution’s supposed principles on diversity of thought and freedom of expression cease to operate when a faculty member expresses a ‘forbidden’ view.”

A similar letter is circulating that invites U-M alums to sign.

Both letters refer to a video of the entire commencement ceremony disappearing from the university’s website. A spokesperson told Bridge in a statement that the video has since been restored. “The university has edited out the preshow to address the copyright issues and restored the recording for viewing.”

The letters come after Derek Peterson, professor of history and African studies, spoke during the Saturday graduation ceremony about students who have fought for social justice over the years. His speech recalled Sarah Burger, the first woman who fought to get admitted to U-M.

He encouraged the students to remember her the next time they sing “Hail to the Victors,” U-M’s fight song, along with students who have fought for a diverse campus as part of the Black Action Movement, a pioneering U-M Jewish professor and pro-Palestinian students.

“Sing for Moritz Levi, the first Jewish professor at the University of Michigan. Appointed professor of French in 1896, he was to open the doors of this great university to generations of Jewish students who found in Ann Arbor a safe haven from the anti-Semitism of East Coast universities,” said Peterson, the crowd applauding. “Sing for the pro-Palestinian student activists who have over these past two years opened our hearts to the injustice and inhumanity of Israel’s war in Gaza.”

U-M’s greatness is not only about student athletes, added Peterson, the outgoing chair of the faculty senate.

“The greatness of this university rests also on the courage and the conviction of student activists who have pushed this university down the path towards justice,” said Peterson. “It is to them that we can rightly sing ‘Hail to the Victors…’”

Backlash

Soon after, many criticized Peterson’s references to pro-Palestinian student activists, who disrupted the 2024 graduation ceremony and conducted numerous campus protest demanding that the university divest from its endowment any funding in Israeli companies after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel and the country’s counterattack on Gaza.

“Commencement is a celebration of every graduate,” U-M’s Hillel, a Jewish student organization, posted on social media. “It is not a stage for political statements that alienate the Jewish community … We expect the University of Michigan to reaffirm its commitment to an inclusive environment for all students, including its Jewish community …”

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Outgoing U-M President Domenico Grasso on Saturday issued a public statement calling Peterson’s comments “hurtful and insensitive to many members of our community.”

“We regret the pain this has caused on a day devoted to celebration and accomplishment,” Grasso wrote. “For this, the university apologizes. The Faculty Senate Chair deviated from the remarks he had shared before the ceremony. The Chair’s comments were inappropriate and do not represent our institutional position.^* Nor do they represent the diversity of views across our entire faculty.”

“Everyone in our community is entitled to their own views; but this was neither the time nor the place,” Grasso continued. “Commencement is a time of celebration, recognition and unity. The Chair’s remarks were expected to be congratulatory, not a platform for personal or political expression.”

In a joint statement issued Sunday, Michael Schostak and Lena Epstein, the Republican-endorsed candidates for U-M regents board race, wrote that they were “deeply troubled” that Peterson was a featured commencement speaker. “And we are even more disappointed in his choice to use this platform to deliver his anti-Israel rhetoric to our graduates, families, and a watching world.”

Schostak went even further, saying on X that there should be accountability measures for Peterson for deviating from his approved speech.

“Put him on leave without pay, strip him of administrative support or research assistants, cut his expense budget, among others,” Shostak wrote.

Peterson did not respond immediately to a request for comment from Bridge. A statement attributed to Peterson in The Michigan Daily, the U-M student newspaper, reads: “It should not be controversial to have one’s ‘heart opened to the inhumanity and injustice of Israel’s war in Gaza’, which is what I credited activists with doing.”

“Having an open heart to other people’s suffering is a fundamental human virtue, and it is a quality that I hope we teach our students, whatever their political posture might be.”

Faculty response to apology

Many U-M faculty, students and staff are “alarmed” at President Grasso’s comments, said Charlotte Karem Albrecht, associate professor of American Culture and Women’s and Gender Studies.

“Apologizing for remarks that laud U-M’s long and continuing history of students organizing against injustice is abhorrent,” Albrecht said.

She was among the scores of U-M faculty members who signed the faculty letter.

“Nothing in Professor Peterson’s statement warrants any apology,” the letter says. “To the contrary, it is President Grasso’s statement for which the University should apologize. By using the University’s highest-level perch to criticize a faculty member for offering views on a public issue, President Grasso’s statement violates the University’s stated policy to ‘maintain a position of institutional neutrality on political or social issues and events not directly related to its internal governance.’”

Critics of Peterson’s speech did not include his context, which was a celebration of many students who have protested against injustice and therefore was “an embodiment of–the ‘celebration, recognition, and unity’ that are appropriate at commencement,” the letter says.

As for those that Grasso said were hurt by Peterson’s comments, the letter says that Grasso hurt many with his letter.

“Many members of our community have family members who have been killed, whose houses have been destroyed, and whose lives have been transformed by Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza,” the letter says. “President Grasso has now told these members of our community that their perspective on this issue is so out of bounds that the University should apologize for its even having been expressed. We can think of little the University could do that is more ‘hurtful and insensitive’ to the deep moral commitments and expressions of these community members.”

U-M officials said they had nothing more to share at this time.

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