Protesters paraded down the street outside the Carrier Dome on May 9, 1981, the day of the Carrier Dome’s inaugural commencement. Some wore costumes, others held signs, a few carried a cardboard coffin.

Two of the protesters were arrested on charges of disorderly conduct, according to Summer Orange records, the Daily Orange’s former summer edition.

Inside the Dome, hundreds wore armbands that students distributed with commencement gowns. About 150 to 200 students turned their backs to the stage. A similar number of students walked out during the speech. And in the midst of it all, about 20 protesters dressed as bleeding nuns and fascists stood in Section 103 of the Dome pointing down below, according to Summer Orange records.

The commotion was in response to then-Syracuse University Chancellor Melvin Eggers’ commencement speaker choice of Alexander Haig Jr. Haig was the current secretary of state, White House chief of staff during the Nixon administration and former commander of NATO.

Backlash erupted mere days after the announcement because of international controversy regarding U.S. presence in South America, and because Eggers made the decision without student input or approval of the Senate. Fifty-five faculty members sent a four-page letter to the chancellor. Students United for Peace and the Ad Hoc Committee For a Fair Commencement met to organize protests and attract a media spotlight.

“That was big,” said Tom Walsh, executive vice president for advancement and external affairs. “But that’s the last time I remember (commencement controversy) kind of getting big.”

While commencements in the Carrier Dome haven’t seen as much controversy since the Haig incident, JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon, SU’s 2010 commencement speaker, is hardly the first SU commencement speaker choice to receive backlash since.

“With almost every commencement speaker I’ve heard some constituency that doesn’t like them,” Walsh said.

And the student disapproval over the choice of a commencement speaker is not unique to SU either.

Negative response to commencement speakers is fairly common, said Kristal Hartman Gault, who wrote a thesis paper called “The Development of a Genre: Commencement Addresses Delivered by Popular Cultural Icons” at Texas State University, San Marcos, in 2008.

“Each time that it happened, it seemed like the speaker wasn’t in line with the graduates’ priorities, I guess,” Gault said. “Often times you pick a controversial figure because those are the figures of interest.”

While criticism for commencement speakers has become national news in recent years — such as Notre Dame University’s negative reaction last year to President Barack Obama due to his pro-choice stance — Gault said based on her research, she does not believe student opposition is becoming a trend.

However, universities now take more of an interest in speakers students want. As a result, more popular culture icons are asked to speak, whereas commencement speakers have historically been politicians and other civic leaders, Gault said.

The Daily Orange has published at least one letter to the editor or column criticizing every commencement speaker choice of the past 10 years, with the exception of Ted Koppel, Eileen Collins, Billy Joel and Joe Biden. Most commented the speaker did not represent the entire senior class, something Walsh said is hard to do. Seldom have there been letters or columns commending the university’s choice.

Walsh doesn’t recall any complaints about Joe Biden being last year’s commencement speaker, but he said Bill Clinton was a controversial choice in 2003 after the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

“And Jane Goodall, what could we learn from, you know, the person who spent all her time in Africa with gorillas?” Walsh said, recalling complaints he heard in 2005.

“As people approach commencement, I think the debate goes on, as it is this year,” Walsh said. “But then what seems to have happened every year is that a sort of consensus develops that, ‘This is commencement. This is the only day I’ll ever graduate from college. I’d like it to be nice. My family’s coming.’”

But in 2002, when former New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani was chosen as SU’s commencement speaker, that consensus wasn’t reached. Though months after Sept. 11 and after Time magazine named him its Man of the Year, some students were offended by the choice because of his administration’s track record of racial profiling blacks and Latinos.

A petition against Giuliani with 500-plus signatures surfaced, and then-Student Association President Colin Seale called an SA meeting that resulted in the assembly ‘denouncing’ the administration’s commencement speaker choice, Seale said. It was on the same night SA distributed funding to organizations, SA’s busiest meeting of the year, he said.

“No speaker selection for graduation should ever make people cry,” Seale said, referring to the emotions that ran high during forums leading up to graduation day. “That should be a basic rule. You shouldn’t make people feel like, ‘You know what, my family isn’t going to be able to come to commencement.’”

The African American studies department boycotted commencement, Seale said.

Some students stood up during Giuliani’s speech, their backs turned and their right fists raised in the air. The red armbands they wore symbolized ‘the great amount of bloodshed that came from African-Americans while Giuliani was in office,’ a protester told the Daily Orange that day.

A few held up their wallets, to represent Amadou Diallo, a West African immigrant who was shot at 41 times by New York City policemen after he reached for his ID in 1999 during the search for a rape suspect.

Seale remembers the details of that year — the SA meeting, the forums held to discuss Giuliani and what some called his “regime.”

Of the protests against Dimon, Seale said, “I definitely support students that are speaking out right now against a speaker that they feel the same way about.”

Published on April 14, 2010 at 12:00 pm