Salman Rushdie Doesn't Speak for All of Us

Commencement is supposed to celebrate all of us—this year, it won’t.

Salman Rushdie delivering the commencement address at Emory University in 2015 (credit: Emory News Center)

“Why are we here?”

This phrase bookends a Claremont McKenna education. President Chodosh opens every convocation with it, and it lingers in the air at every commencement. More than rhetorical, it is meant to be a compass: a reminder that this institution exists not just to instruct, but to form. Not just to credential, but to cultivate judgment, leadership, and purpose.

It’s a question I once admired. It asked us to look past grades and accolades and reflect on what our time here means—who it serves, and what kind of people it helps us become. But this year, as the College prepares to welcome Salman Rushdie as the speaker for its 77th Commencement, the question feels hollow. The phrase still echoes, but it no longer lands. Because if we are still asking why we are here, then the answer should include all of us. This year, it doesn’t.

In his announcement to the community, President Chodosh described Rushdie as “a fearless writer and advocate for freedom of expression.” The College framed his selection as a principled stand, an affirmation of open inquiry in the face of repression. But for many Muslims, on this campus and beyond, The Satanic Verses—Rushdie’s 1988 novel, which includes passages widely viewed as blasphemous toward the Prophet Muhammad, his wives, his companions, and the Holy Qur’an—is deeply offensive. These passages do not merely critique; they mock, sexualize, and distort what many hold most sacred. It is a wound still felt. On May 17th, that wound will not be distant—it will sit in the audience, carried in the hearts of students and families who arrive expecting celebration, only to be met with the quiet sting of exclusion at what is meant to be the institution’s most unifying moment.

The College knew this history. It knew—or should have known—what this choice would signal to members of its own community. And still, it proceeded—without consultation, without dialogue, and with no visible sign of reflection. 

Commencement is not a forum for contested expression. It is not a symposium for moral disputes. It is a ritual—a final act of institutional speech meant to affirm that the College has fulfilled its mission: “to prepare students for thoughtful and productive lives and responsible leadership.” That charge is not fulfilled through disregard for the students it claims to nurture. It is fulfilled through judgment, care, and clarity about what the moment demands.

There were other options. Rushdie could have been invited to the Athenaeum, or any setting where his ideas could be engaged in good faith. That would have been appropriate. But commencement is not that setting. It is a space without reply. The speaker must be heard, but not questioned. The audience must listen, but not engage. That is precisely why the moment demands restraint. A ceremony meant to unify cannot afford symbolic fracture. The College should know the difference between honoring conviction and staging provocation.

The show will go on. The gowns will rustle. The names will be read. But beneath the surface lies a painful rupture. For many Muslims, the pain will be visceral. It will come from the unbearable dissonance of hearing applause for a man who profaned the very figure they hold most sacred. And the institution that taught them to lead with purpose will ask them, in that moment, to sit still and smile.

Why are we here? To be present, not to belong. To witness, not to shape. To clap, and then to leave.