Hundreds of Stanford graduates walk out during Sundar Pichai speech over Israel ties
More than 100 Stanford University graduates walked out of the school’s commencement ceremony during Google CEO Sundar Pichai’s speech, protesting the company’s ties to the Israeli government, according to Channel 12. The protesters left the stands at Stanford Stadium, waved Palestinian flags and chanted, “Free Palestine.”
The demonstration was organized by pro-Palestinian groups including Students for Justice in Palestine and No Tech for Apartheid. Pichai, a Stanford alumnus who earned a master’s degree in materials engineering there in 1995, had been chosen as the keynote speaker for the university’s 135th commencement.
Despite the walkout, Pichai continued speaking and focused his remarks on optimism, change and adaptation. The protest came amid criticism of Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion cloud contract involving Google and Amazon to provide cloud and artificial intelligence services to the Israeli government.
Critics say the project’s technology could be used by Israel’s security establishment. Google has previously rejected those claims, saying the contract is for government cloud services.
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