The Politics of Platform Allocation: Commencement Speaker Selection at U.S. Universities, 1989–2024

Campus speech conflicts have intensified scrutiny of university decisions about whom to publicly elevate and platform. We examine commencement speaker selection as an organizational practice shaped by institutional characteristics and political environments rather than as a simple expression of institutional ideology. To address this gap, we analyze the political orientations of 1,875 commencement speakers at 52 universities between 1989 and 2024. Findings indicate a rise in liberal speakers, particularly since 2011, and a higher prevalence of conservative speakers at public institutions and universities with curricular emphases on occupational and professional fields. External environments of universities, including partisan control of state governments, citizen ideology, and disinvitation efforts from both the political left and right, also shape speaker selection.