Do people have an inalienable right to make commencement speeches?

This isn’t a rhetorical question — the answer, of course, is “no.” And yet we’ve seen this controversy come up yet again as George Mason is planning to honor Glenn Youngkin at this year’s commencement:

“I’m so proud to be Bill & Stacy’s best man, but in the spirit of lively debate, I’ve decided to let this holocaust denier give the toast on my behalf…” Not every occasion is ripe for a robust clash of ideas. Sometimes you should just pick a speaker the audience wants to hear.— @[email protected] (@normative) March 29, 2023

It is not “censorship” for students to criticize the choice of speakers for their ceremony. Nobody has a right to this platform. Nobody seriously thinks otherwise.

To square the circle, the argument is apparently that while it is not “censorship” to determine a particular speaker would be inappropriate ex ante, once a speaker has been invited they then have a vested right to speak that cannot be abridged without violating free speech principles. But this is still an incoherent argument. The vast majority of students play no role in selecting the commencement speaker, and indeed will not even know the speaker is until it is announced. This arbitrary, ad hoc rule practically means that the students who are paying the relevant salaries and honoraria are not permitted to have any say in the process at all. This nonsensical “principle,” needless to say, is much more like “censorship” than rescinding a speaking invitation. There’s just no actual principle of free speech that requires students to just shut up and accept whatever speaker the administration selects.