Graduates carrying Palestinian flags left the stadium as the comic was being introduced. Duke University’s commencement saw a minor disruption when students protesting the war in Gaza walked out before Jerry Seinfeld spoke.
Video from Sunday’s event in Durham, North Carolina, showed about 30 students in cap and gown get up and leave their graduation ceremony as Seinfeld was introduced by Duke President Vincent Price.
Chants of “Free, free Palestine” could be heard as students carried the state’s green, red and black flag out of the football stadium.
In footage shared on social media, the audience could be heard booing, though it was unclear if the shouts were directed at Seinfeld or the protestors, which appeared to be a sliver of the 7,000 graduates in attendance.
Also audible were chants and jeers of “Jerry,” a reaction which sounded split between support and mockery of the sitcom star.
Seinfeld, who also received an honorary doctorate degree from the school on Sunday, has been a staunch supporter of Israel amid its response to the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas.
He’s posted on social media in solidarity with Israel several times since last fall’s incursion, and in December, the “Bee Movie” voice traveled to Tel Aviv to meet with the families of hostages captured by Hamas.
A lot of elite universities seem to host huge right wing douche bags. Oxford has hosted Ben Shapiro, Cambridge Jordan Peterson.
I’d be embarassed for those schools but I have utterly no connection to them, and I’m pretty sure they’re no longer places of intelligence or culture.
@antidote101 weird… any theory about why?
I think elite schools are just first in line in terms of being political betrayers of the actual substantive left. The interests of those schools and the families that tend to be able to afford to send their children then just tend to be aligned with the interests of capital as a whole.
I forget whether it was the Koch brothers or other fracking billionaires, who provided the seed money for Ben Shapiro to set up The Daily wire, but no doubt those sorts of people are financially tied to him being their mouthpiece.
Money talks, and this is all part of why we live in a two party system, even though the majority seems like left leaning liberals… Because the free market right have a greater level of class interests with the wealthy, and so can afford greater platforms in culture and in researching how to manipulate the political theatre of opinion.
Thanks for that well-thought out comment. I think you’re right, and sites of knowledge/idea production are probably always targets of that kind of injection of right wing interests to some extent.
Seriously though, from what I’ve read Jerry hates Trump and Republicans. Why is he right wing now? Cause he disagrees with your one issue??
It’s not a binary tho, it’s more like a continuum, and it’s all relative.
Seinfeld has been sounding off about kids these days being too “woke” and destroying comedy, which puts him pretty solidly to the right of most people here.
puts him pretty solidly to the right of most people here.
i feel like lemmy is pretty left of reddit, which in itself is pretty left-leaning… so saying “right of most people here” is a really low bar
This is a serious topic and I’m happy that students are calling attention to the war in any way they can. It’s also very funny to see Seinfeld described as the voice of Bee Movie
Why would he even be a commencement speaker?
I know this is a serious issue and Jerry can get fucked, but the dean of Duke is named Vincent Price and that gave me a short silly movie in my head
Jerry is nothing more than Larry David’s creation and a cunty boot licker. His stand-up has always sucked. I have no idea what people ever have liked about him specifically.