A few weeks ago, in RealClear Education, I argued that the commencement lectern is not a pulpit. The occasion was University of Michigan Faculty Senate Chair Derek Peterson’s decision to use his commencement remarks to deliver a political message about Israel and Gaza. My argument was simple: commencement is not the same kind of speech occasion as a lecture, debate, or classroom discussion, and universities that fail to recognize that distinction will keep stumbling into avoidable controversies.

Two weeks later, at Sarah Lawrence College’s May 8 commencement, a graduate student selected to address the assembled community closed her remarks with the words “Free Palestine.”

For many Jews, especially after October 7, “Free Palestine” is a hostile, threatening, and deeply intimidating slogan tied to movements that reject Jewish self-determination and, at times, justify violence against Jews. Sarah Lawrence has seen several anti-Israel protests in recent years, including an encampment and a building occupation, and concerns about anti-Semitism grew serious enough that the House Committee on Education and the Workforce requested information from the college about the treatment and safety of its Jewish students. Hearing “Free Palestine” from a college-approved commencement speaker was, to put it mildly, unsettling.

What strikes me is that Sarah Lawrence had Michigan to look to when determining how to respond to such remarks. Michigan faced the same problem—and apologized for it. President Domenico Grasso called Peterson’s remarks “hurtful and insensitive,” said the university regretted the pain they caused on a day meant for celebration, and apologized on the institution’s behalf. The response did not come from the stage in the moment, and it drew its own faculty backlash. But an apology did come.

Sarah Lawrence, however, has made no public statement repudiating the remark, distancing the institution from it, or acknowledging how Jewish members of the community heard it and felt threatened. That silence is the whole of its public response.

The handling of the written record also compounds the impression that the university doesn’t wish to acknowledge the remark. The unedited video of the ceremony captures the student saying “Free Palestine,” but the transcript of the speech posted on the college’s website does not. The page is labeled “Remarks as prepared for delivery,” and the ceremony video sits on the same page. Fair enough, but the written documentation does not reflect what the community actually heard.

It is also worth recalling the environment in which the speaker was selected. Students for Justice in Palestine is a visible, resourced group on campus. An Instagram post shows that the graduate student was associated with the group. Moreover, Sarah Lawrence remains under multiple federal inquiries over its handling of anti-Semitism.

But suppose the institution could not have foreseen the remark coming. Suppose no one anticipated it. It would not matter, because foreknowledge of any speaker’s intent is beside the point here. The question is what the institution did after the remark was made. Sarah Lawrence has chosen to remain silent, and that silence is hard to square with what Judd herself said at the same commencement.

In her commencement address, Judd pledged that every student, regardless of “religion, nationality or national origin belong[s] in this community.” She also said that Sarah Lawrence is “committed to free expression practiced within a framework of mutual respect.” Indeed, she acknowledged what she called “a constant and fundamental tension” between those principles, arguing that “one—free expression—is not possible without the other—mutual respect.”

But “Free Palestine” does not reconcile with either principle. It is not a message of belonging. Nor is it an expression of mutual respect.

More fundamentally, commencement is not a classroom discussion, a debate, or an open forum. Commencement speakers are selected, approved, and elevated by the institution itself. As a result, colleges bear some responsibility for what is said from the commencement stage.

Michigan, however late, accepted that responsibility and apologized. Sarah Lawrence has not. But it should.