BU has announced that David Zaslav, the CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, will give the 150th Commencement Address this year. Zaslav is the last person right now who BU should ask its graduating seniors to look up to, as he is refusing to negotiate with his employees, who are on strike right now, in good faith. Even before the strike, Zaslav laid off thousands of media and entertainment workers while personally earning $246 million in 2021 alone. He led the 2022 merger of WarnerMedia and Discovery, a merger that, according to Senator Elizabeth Warren, "enabled it to harm workers and heighten barriers to entry in the media and entertainment industry." His former employees at HBO Max have also accused him of selectively laying off people of color and canceling shows that feature representation for marginalized groups.

Moreover, Zaslav's employees are currently on strike due to the abhorrent working conditions and pay that writers at Warner Bros. Discovery face. Selecting Zaslav to give this historic address during the ongoing writers' strike is a slap in the face both to the writers currently on strike and the BU graduates who plan to go into the media arts and entertainment industry after graduation. By inviting Zaslav to give this address and laundering his reputation at this critical juncture for the entertainment industry, BU is directly suppressing the future income of its graduates.

If you agree that Zaslav should NOT be giving the commencement address, please fill out the form on the right to send BU administrators an email telling them your thoughts.