A Columbia University student’s microphone appears to have been cut off just moments after she started delivering an anti-Israel commencement speech rant.
Saham David Ahmed Ali tore into the Ivy League school as she delivered the class speaker address at the Mailman School of Public Health’s commencement ceremony on Tuesday.
Video shows the moment the student’s mic suddenly appeared to start glitching as she was midway through ripping Columbia’s “silence” over the ongoing Gaza war.
The microphone cut off several more times over the next few seconds, prompting those in the crowd to start repeatedly chanting “let her speak.”
It wasn’t immediately clear if the microphone was intentionally cut or if it just briefly malfunctioned.
Despite the initial hiccup, Ali was able to deliver the rest of her roughly 15-minute anti-Columbia and anti-Israel tirade without further interruptions.
In the lead up to the mic saga, Ali had declared it felt “dystopian” to walk the halls of the school “scrolling through social media, standing in our classrooms as I witness the genocide of the Palestinian people.”
“The silence on this campus and the pressure to say nothing while administration and professors assert that ‘we’re here for you’ while we’re actively witnessing the most televised genocide of our lives made me lose hope,” she said.
Ali rounded out her speech by rattling off the demands the anti-Israel student group Apartheid Divest have been making as protests have plagued the Morningside Heights campus for weeks.
She also called for the Ivy League to boot NYPD officers from the campus and grant amnesty to students cuffed and hauled away during the disruptive demonstrations.
