Editorial: Bernhardt's Revenge

In our May 23 issue of the DISCIPLINE NEWS Bulletin, we published a letter from a recent Emerson graduate, the sole student ejected from this Spring’s Agganis Arena Commencement events. The student’s ‘crime’– upon receiving their diploma– was holding up to the video camera a small sign decrying Emerson’s complicity in Palestinian genocide and waving a keffiyeh.  Not only were these actions scarcely visible to the audience, the video having immediately cut away to a wide shot, but they were hardly the only violations of the administration’s new commencement behavior contract.

As the student reported, one could see other students, “stopping on stage to dance, yelling to the audience, unzipping gowns to goofy shirts, one even crawled on all fours and carried the diploma in their mouth like a dog, but only pro-Palestine messages were censored.”  No doubt it was the fervent nature of the student in question’s moment of protest, combined with the administration’s awareness of their history of activism, that led to their being rapidly escorted out of the arena and onto the street.  But in the minds of Emerson’s administration, this was not punishment enough.

The student now informs that they have received a letter from the College (unsigned), informing them that as the consequence of their few seconds of protest, they are henceforth banned from the campus for the next 10 years, unable to apply to graduate school at Emerson, unable to apply for employment at Emerson,  and denied access to all alumni services.  Could any unbiased arbiter truly conclude that this was a reasonable penalty commensurate to the infraction?  One might speculate that following a second year where the majority of graduating students refused to shake Jay Bernhardt’s hand that these sanctions were the retributions of a wounded ego. Perhaps in Bernhardt’s mind, exercising power in this way may help stave off the long arm of the Trump administration. And perhaps, Emerson needs its own “No Kings” protest.