COMMENCEMENT 2023

Nearly 200 Protest BU’s Commencement Speaker, David Zaslav, amidst Hollywood Writers Strike

WGA strikers criticize BU for having the Warner Bros. executive speak while writers fight for fair wages

Supporters of the writers strike gather on Comm Ave to protest the 2023 Boston University Commencement speaker, David Zaslav (LAW’85), CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery.

It wasn’t all smiles, pomp, and circumstance at Boston University’s All-University Commencement ceremony on Sunday. Well before the program at Nickerson Field started at 1 pm, a group of nearly 200 protesters had gathered in front of Agganis Way along Commonwealth Avenue to voice their opposition to the 2023 Commencement speaker, BU alum and entertainment mogul David Zaslav (LAW’85), the CEO and president of Warner Bros. Discovery.

As graduates in cap and gown filed toward Nickerson Field under bright sunny skies, they were flanked on one side by BU and Boston police and marching protesters on the other. Demonstrators bearing signs reading, “Protect Residuals Not CEOs,” and, “Private Jets But No Fair Wages,” marched in a circle, with call-and-response chants like, “No Wages/No Pages.” Cars honked in support, underscored by the occasional “go home” or “get out of the way” muttered by graduates and their families as they walked past.

“I think they should be protesting if they see that our Commencement speaker is this guy,” said Megan Walsh (Questrom’23).

Opposition to Zaslav (LAW’85) as the speaker at the University’s 150th Commencement began almost immediately after his name was announced on  May 3—one day after the Writers Guild of America began its first strike in 15 years.

The WGA has singled out Zaslav, as one of the nation’s highest-earning film and television executives whose oversight includes HBO Max and Discovery+, as the movement’s primary antagonist in their fight for improved wages. The guild’s main demand is fair pay for their work, which belies the complexities of Hollywood’s pay structure for film and TV writers, particularly when it comes to streaming media. Striking writers claim that streaming services have steadily robbed them of fair compensation and job security. 

“I spent a lot of time here and I learned from a lot of great faculty members who themselves are WGA members,” said one of the protesters, Lauren Daly (COM’22) of New York, who currently works as a TV writer. “There are a lot of students in this graduation ceremony that have graduated this weekend that are looking to go into film and television, and people like Zaslav are fundamentally preventing young writers from establishing themselves.”

“I’m very disappointed in BU for this choice of speaker at this time,” David Shore of California, a WGA member and a Sunday protester who served on the negotiating committee prior to the strike, told BU Today. “I find it a very strange statement that the University is making by having this speaker here today.” 

“Zaslav makes something in the hundreds of millions per year, which is not far off from what 11,000 writers are asking for [pay] for three years,” said Annie Stamell of Maine, a WGA East member who helped check in strikers at the Boston Playwrights’ Theatre on Sunday. “He’s also overseen this massive [streaming] merger and, with that as his goal, it reveals that his true customers are not actually consumers of content, but shareholders.”

Zaslav did not address the protest during his Commencement address, which also saw a plane fly overhead trailing a banner that said, “DAVID ZASLAV PAY YOUR WRITERS.” He was forced to pause a few times as students occasionally shouted out. In interviews in recent weeks, he has insisted that TV executives are sad to see empty writers’ rooms and he hopes the strike can be ended quickly through negotiations.

“In order to create great storytelling, we need great writers, and we need the whole industry to work together,” he said in an interview with CNBC’s Squawk Box. “And everybody deserves to be paid fairly, so our number one focus is, let’s try and get this resolved.”

Calls to picket the 2023 Commencement ceremony were made on social media in the days and weeks leading up to Sunday. Picketers included BU students and alums, members of the WGA, and local unions. Some Class of 2023 graduates opted out of attending Commencement in favor of the protest, which stretched from the Playwrights’ Theatre across Agganis Way in an informal picket line of marchers, as students in their red gowns walked past with family and friends. 

“Most of my friends are going in, but I do expect to see some other BU students out here,” said Annie Mayne (COM’23), who wore her cap and gown while protesting. “I was disappointed to hear people at the COM graduation not understand what the issue was, but I also understand a lot of people had family travel really far to come. It’s a decision you have to make—but for me, it was pretty easy.”

In an email to the Daily Free Press, President Robert Brown stated that Zaslav’s “accomplishments are worthy of our recognition,” but that BU “fully respect[s] the right of the WGA to seek the best possible compensation through the collective bargaining process.” 

“It is not in keeping with our policy for free and open speech to disinvite a speaker to indicate support to a party in a labor dispute,” he wrote.

Nevertheless, some protesters felt strongly that BU should have done just that.

“Whether or not BU intended [to send a message], they’ve certainly poked a hornet’s nest,” said Nathan Phillips, a professor of Earth and environment at the College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, who joined the demonstration after the ceremony had ended. “I applaud the people here who are asserting their rights, as workers, to fair wages and fair treatment.”