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Friday, July 2, 2021
Vol. 70, No. 27
HOME & DESIGN
HERRICKS GRAD SWIMS FOR OLYMPIC SPOT
KAMINSKY DEM CHOICE FOR DA
PAGES 21-28
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Revised speech received, not read: Feeney Wheatley principal revises account of grad’s talk that sparked furor BY S A M U E L E PETRUCCELLI Five days after a Wheatley School student delivered a graduation address referring to the violence between Israelis and Palestinians as ethnic cleansing, the school principal said he did not read the final speech before the ceremony. “I was not informed that the speech had been edited by the student after it had been selected and approved by the Wheatley Speech Selection Committee,” Principal Sean Feeney wrote in a statement released last Thursday. “As such, while I did read the approved speech, I did not read the final speech before it was presented during the Wheatley School graduation on Sunday, June 20th.” Feeney’s comments seemed to remove some of the onus placed on the graduate, Huda Ayaz, who is Muslim, in an email he sent to the community on June 20 following the strong reactions caused by her speech.
“Unfortunately, one of the student speakers diverted from the remarks that had been originally approved by the Graduation Speech Committee who made the selections, presenting personal views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” Feeney said in the email. “I apologize that such a wonderful ceremony became marred for many people in attendance due to those remarks.” In her speech, Ayaz urged her fellow graduates: “Speak for those who don’t have a voice, and stand up for any injustice that you see. Educate yourself about international dilemmas, including the ethnic cleansings of Palestinians and Uighur Muslims. Families are continuously torn apart and real human lives are being lost but ignored.” Ayaz’s speech was met by at least one racist remark with an attendee shouting, “Go back to Pakistan,” according to Ayaz’s lawyer and legal director at the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Ahmed Continued on Page 34
PHOTO COURTESY OF MINEOLA HIGH SCHOOL
Mineola High School’s 113th class graduated at Eisenhower Park on Saturday.
Mineola High School graduates 113th class BY S A M U E L E PETRUCCELLI
Marvel’s cinematic universe at commencement on Saturday morning. Speaking to an audience in Mineola High School’s 113th graduating class heard Eisenhower Park, Superintenthe district superintendent re- dent Michael Nagler compared count two Avengers films from the Marvel movies’ “blip” – a
five-year period when half of all life in the universe was exterminated – to the “new normal” that his schools endured during the height of the coronavirus pandemic. Continued on Page 35
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