Overview
- A preannounced walkout saw roughly 100 to 200 graduates leave Stanford Stadium while chanting “Free, free Palestine” as Sundar Pichai began his keynote on Sunday.
- Organizers named by protesters included Stanford Students for Justice in Palestine and No Tech for Apartheid, who framed the action as a protest against Google’s ties to the Israeli government and to U.S. agencies such as ICE and DHS.
- Pichai continued his speech without addressing the protest, avoided discussing artificial intelligence on stage, and declined to comment to a BBC reporter after the ceremony.
- Stanford says about 20,000 people attended the ceremony, which included roughly 3,600 graduates, and many who walked out later joined an alternative “People’s Commencement” featuring activist Mahmoud Khalil.
- The demonstration revives concerns tied to Project Nimbus, the roughly $1.2 billion cloud contract with Israel that has prompted internal Google protests and disciplinary actions in 2024, and it raises renewed reputational and oversight risks for tech firms working with governments.