Choice of Hoda Kotb for Tulane University’s Commencement Speaker Causes Controversy

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Not everyone finds Hoda Kotb and Kathie Lee Gifford’s Today show schtick amusing.

About 200 students at Tulane University in New Orleans signed an online petition calling for the replacement of Kotb, a former New Orleans news anchor, as this year’s chosen commencement speaker after her appearance was announced last week.

“We all feel cheated. Given the amount of money, work, and passion we have poured into our educational careers at Tulane, we think we deserve better than this,” the petition read, calling Kotb “hardly an inspirational figure."

"Commencement speeches are supposed to inspire students before they are thrown into the real world,” the petitioners wrote. “Hoda Kotb spends her time sipping wine on talk shows, and discussing which dog breed is trendiest in 2016. There’s hardly anything inspirational about that. This is an embarrassment not only to the entire class of 2016, but also to the school as a whole."

Ouch! But the whole thing kind of backfired on the students who were hoping for a new speaker. The old petition was taken down and a new one, which had garnered more than 800 signatures as of Monday afternoon, surfaced to welcome Kotb to the Crescent City for the May 14 event.

"Hoda is a first generation Egyptian American, Daytime Emmy award winning broadcast journalist, and a best-selling author,” the statement read. “She was a beloved news anchor on WWL in New Orleans from 1992-1998. And we would love to see her up on that podium, glass of wine in hand, sending us off on our journeys in life. Let’s show Hoda some love!"

One of Kotb’s former colleagues at the news station, Karen Swensen, stuck up for her friend. "Deserve better? Better doesn’t exist. You have undoubtedly already read about Hoda’s professional accomplishments — how she’s earned the top awards in the industry: Emmys, Peabodys, Murrows, and DuPonts,” Swensen wrote in a lengthy piece. “She’s earned them all. She’s covered the biggest stories of the last quarter century and not from the sidelines, but in the field — 9/11, the invasion of Iraq, Katrina. Oh, Katrina. No one shared the plight of New Orleans on the national stage like she did. It was more than a story. It was personal."

In reply, Kotb told the CBS affiliate, "Forget the petition, I love the response. I love New Orleans! See you soon!"

Expect other commencement speaker controversies to follow, even for people who aren’t political, partly because social media has made it possible for people and groups to make their voices heard much more easily. No one has to keep their dissatisfaction with a speaker to themselves.

Back in 2009, UCLA students took to Facebook to show their dislike of the selection of James Franco to speak at graduation, complaining that he had only graduated from the school one year before and he wasn’t accomplished enough. The student-run Daily Bruin summed up that perspective in an editorial: [We] don’t feel he is as esteemed as a commencement speaker of UCLA’s caliber should be."

Franco ended up canceling due to scheduling conflicts.

Just last May, Matthew McConaughey’s gig at the University of Houston’s first campus-wide graduation ceremony left students and staff less than thrilled. The main problem there was the university’s revelation that it forked out $135,000 for the appearance, a fee that cash-strapped graduates said could have been better spent. (He pledged to donate it to his Just Keep Livin Foundation.) They also didn’t like that he didn’t attend the school and he wasn’t a Houston native.

But being Matthew MConaughey, he managed to win them over and received a standing ovation. Alright, alright, alright.