After her commencement speech criticized Israel and the university, the graduate student speaker was banned from George Washington University’s campus. Now, she’s suing.
Cecilia Culver, who spoke at GW’s Columbian College of Arts & Sciences’ first graduation ceremony in May 2025, condemned the university for disciplining pro-Palestinian protesters and refusing to divest from companies connected to Israel amid the Israel-Hamas war, according to The GW Hatchet, GW’s student newspaper.
Culver is suing the university, her former employer Ernst & Young and a dozen GW and EY officials in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia for defamation and violating her civil rights. She alleges that GW and EY violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the D.C. Human Rights Act and D.C. common law, claiming that GW officials circulated false statements about her after her speech and that EY illegally fired her over her “association with and advocacy for Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims.”
Culver is seeking financial compensation for the “economic and emotional harm” she has endured over the past year, acknowledgement from the university and EY that they violated the law, and an end to her ongoing ban from GW’s campus.
She also hopes to restore her CCAS Distinguished Scholar status — which she lost “full benefit of” after her commencement speech — termination of GW’s alleged ongoing investigation into Culver’s conduct at the graduation ceremony, and punitive damages against GW and three university officials, according to The Hatchet.
Her 167-page lawsuit describes 19 charges for instances of racial discrimination, civil rights conspiracy, breach of contract, breach of confidential relationship, defamation and false light invasion of privacy, The Hatchet reported.
Culver is also suing university officials, including GW President Ellen Granberg, Board of Trustees Chair Grace Speights, former Provost Chris Bracey and CCAS Dean Paul Wahlbeck, also naming two other deans and university spokesperson Kathy Fackelmann.
Culver named five EY executive employees as defendants in the lawsuit. The suit claims that this legal action isn’t meant to further the “human rights movement,” but rather because Culver was a “22-year-old economist at the beginning of a distinguished career, who gave a six-minute speech at her own graduation, and who lost her job for it.”
EY locked Culver’s email and work accounts and placed her on administrative leave less than 24 hours after her speech, according to Financial Times. Four days after she filed a discrimination complaint, the accounting firm terminated her employment.
“No policy violation was identified. No investigation had been conducted. No hearing was offered,” the April 15 lawsuit read.
Culver added that other staff members at EY have made public pro-Israel statements without facing action.
Similarly, she alleges that GW officials never explained what policy she had supposedly violated.
Culver said her speech “unmistakably associated” her with Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims, and that her termination from EY violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which protects employees from discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin, including by association.
After the speech, GW officials launched an investigation into whether Culver violated the university’s events protocol or the student code of conduct, according to Fackelmann. The GW spokesperson added that Culver’s speech was “materially different” from the drafts she submitted to officials for approval in advance.
Culver said she submitted multiple drafts for review to make sure she abided by the time limit and shared a script with the sign language interpreters, but GW didn’t say the submitted draft would be the “exclusive and binding” text she delivered at the ceremony.
She said officials never specified that any topic was off limits or objected to any of the content in her submitted drafts, including one that “mentioned speaking out against injustices in the world,” The Hatchet reported.
GW’s rationale for its action is that Culver was dishonest because her “delivered address differed from a previously submitted draft,” the lawsuit stated. But GW’s speaker materials contain no clause against speakers deviating from a submitted draft. In fact, the first five paragraphs of Culver’s speech were essentially verbatim from the draft GW approved, according to the lawsuit.
After Culver’s speech, CCAS’ associate dean told the crowd that Culver had “strayed from her prepared remarks” and that her views do not represent the university.
Culver’s suit alleges that GW’s “public and institutional response” — claiming she used a “materially different” speech at graduation, launching an investigation into her and disseminating public statements — resulted in her termination from EY.
The termination decision, Culver asserts, wasn’t based on a business or policy concern, but in response to an “organized external Zionist pressure campaign” launched by an online doxxing platform which labeled Culver as “antisemitic.” That campaign led to more than 10,000 messages to EY demanding Culver be fired.
“All of Ms. Culver’s claims arise from a common nucleus of operative fact: the coordinated institutional response by Defendants EY and GWU to Ms. Culver’s May 15, 2025 commencement address, resulting in the unlawful termination of Ms. Culver’s employment, the damage to Ms. Culver’s professional reputation, and the suppression of Ms. Culver’s constitutionally and statutorily protected expression,” the suit read.
GW and EY had not yet responded to requests for comment at the time of publication.
