Leaf - 32 - Canadian - she/they - pan. Icon by @sovhina. I have too many fandoms to list here. My blog is 18+. I write fan-fiction on occasion and I’m planning on getting back into drawing but I have yet to do that. I'm super nice and love to receive asks :D.
not now sweetie, mommy is watching how the massive girlbossification of female characters has led to the belief that weak and vulnerable female characters are badly written characters because apparently every woman needs to be outspoken and witty and snarky and brave in order to be considered “complex” and have any value in a piece of media!!
This is a perfect time to read the brilliant and unforgettable graphic novel(s) Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, about growing up in Iran during and after the Iranian Revolution, and the rise of the oppressive theocracy that persists to this day.
Both graphic novels are available free online (Persepolis vol. 1, Persepolis vol. 2)
It also was adapted to a wonderful film (co-directed and co-written by the author) which is available to watch for free on Sundance Now (sign up for the free trial)
Leen Hijaz, a Palestinian Muslim valedictorian at Clayton High, tried to end her graduation speech with a call for humanity. Instead, she wa
Holler and Hammer:
Principal Melissa Hubbard got up and crossed the stage when Leen Hijaz, Palestinian, Muslim, early graduate, valedictorian, tried to finish her speech by naming Palestine, Sudan, Congo, Afghanistan, and families ripped apart by ICE. Leen tried to say every person deserves dignity, safety, and the chance to dream.
That was the line that made Hubbard stomp across the stage and shut her down in front of the whole crowd at Nixon-Fowler Stadium for Clayton High School’s graduation on Thursday, May 28, 2026.
The ceremony did not stop there. Less than five minutes later, Senior Class Vice President Cecelia Trader stepped up, asked the audience to bow their heads, and opened with a Christian prayer: “Dear Heavenly Father.” Hubbard stayed seated. A few minutes after that, Student Body Vice President, Mallory Kuykendall introduced senior class president Gates Hale through his church work and mission trips, then Gates quoted Proverbs 3:5-6 and told the graduating class the Lord had a purpose and path for each of them. Hubbard stayed seated. At the end of the ceremony, Allison Lowery, Student Body Historian, closed the night with a prayer and a Bible verse. Hubbard stayed seated for that, too.
The approved part of Leen’s speech was the kind of graduation talk schools love, because it doesn’t ask anyone anything risky. She welcomed students, staff, families, honored guests, and the whole Class of 2026. She talked about hard work, growth, memories, sacrifice, perseverance, parents, guardians, teachers, coaches, loved ones. She told her classmates to be proud. She said they will always be Comets. She gave the school the safe version, warm enough for the program, broad enough for the bleachers, careful enough to slip past whatever adult hands were holding the gate.
Then she said, “Before I leave the stage, I have one last thing to say.”
That was the part she left out of the official draft, because she already knew exactly how this place works and who gets to speak.
“Every single person here has a voice,” her written speech says, “and we are privileged to have the freedom to use it when so many people around the world are suffering and struggling to be heard.” She named “the millions suffering in Palestine, Sudan, Congo, Afghanistan, and so many other countries around the world,” and “the families being torn apart by ICE.”
Then came the line she was trying to finish.
“My point is, we were not given a voice so we could stay silent in the face of suffering. Every person deserves dignity, safety, and the chance to dream for their future just like we do. As we all move forward, I hope we choose to speak up against oppression, support one another, and use our voices to bring compassion and humanity into the world.”
That’s all she tried to say.
Dignity, safety, compassion, and humanity. That is what Principal Melissa Hubbard could not let finish. Not a threat, not a disruption, just the wrong truth from the wrong mouth in the wrong county.
Leen Hijaz is Palestinian. She is Muslim. She graduated early, a junior with the highest GPA at the school, and was valedictorian of the Class of 2026 at Clayton High. She did not walk onto that stage as a prop in somebody else’s culture war. She walked up there carrying a life that most of the room had never had to understand.
Leen did not keep the final lines separate because she misunderstood the rules. She kept them separate because she understood the rules too well.
In our interview, she explained that the approved part of the speech was written to do what graduation speeches are usually expected to do. She wanted “to make a good impression.” She wanted it to be “a reflection of everything that we’ve gone through the past couple of years.” She kept it “very simple” and “something that everyone could relate to.” That was the safe speech. The warm welcome speech that thanks everybody, offends nobody, and lets the ceremony keep moving.
The second part came from somewhere else.
“I wanted something to be spread about the awareness about everything that’s going on in the world,” Leen told me, “because I knew that they weren’t going to bring it up, especially because I am Palestinian.” Then she said the part that should embarrass every adult pretending she is just some kid who doesn’t know what she is talking about.
That is why she wrote it. She did not write it because it was a political talking point she learned from a TikTok clip. That was a student explaining why the final part of her speech mattered to her, why she wanted to name suffering beyond Clayton, beyond Johnston County, beyond the comfortable little ceremony adults wanted.
That is also why she knew it would not survive approval.
Her senior quote for the yearbook had been “From the river to the sea,” and Clayton High made her change it. Leen said it was “apparently too political” and “too offensive.” She did not describe it as a threat. She described it as “just a simple phrase that a lot of Palestinians say because of our ethnic cleansing.” That experience told her what the school would do if she submitted the final part of her speech. Nobody had to spell it out. The lesson had already been taught.
That lesson did not stop with the yearbook.
Clayton High has student groups like Turning Point USA and First Priority Christian Club, and Leen was blunt about how that looked from where she stood.
Clayton High School in Clayton, NC has a graduation speech that is going viral worldwide, and it's because valedictorian Leen Hijaz-- a Palestinian Muslim-- used her valedictorian speech to call out ICE's atrocities and suffering worldwide in Congo, Sudan, and Palestine.
As Hijaz was about to close her speech, Melissa Hubbard-- the school's principal-- rudely snatched the mic from her. On top of that, her diploma was unjustly withheld.
🇵🇸🇵🇸
See Also:
USA Today: Valedictorian's speech cut after unscripted immigration comment
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