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These days it might be easier to get confirmed as a federal judge than to get confirmed as a graduation speaker.

This year alone, four speakers have withdrawn their acceptance or been disinvited from some of the nation's finest institutions of higher ed. Among the celebs, activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali, whose invitation was pulled by Brandeis University due to her past political comments about Islam. The head of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde took herself off the podium at Smith College because of protests over the IMF's policies. Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice withdrew from speaking at Rutgers' graduation after protests objecting to her role in the Iraq War and the war on terror.

The latest target was Robert Birgeneau, a former chancellor at University of California, Berkeley. Slated to speak this weekend to graduates of Haverford College outside Philadelphia, he withdrew in the wake of protests of his alleged mishandling of Occupy demonstrations on campus.

The student and faculty protesters see these graduation invitations as an endorsement of the speakers' life work others see the withdrawals as a disturbing trend and a lack of tolerance for a diversity of views.

Here at DecodeDC, this is more of a cry than a laugh.

What do you think?

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Censorship or scholarship at graduation?

India #39;s Censorship Board Should Get Bolder
Visit - https://www.unitezz.com . India #39;s Biggest Bollywood Entertainment Website for More Exclusives Like us on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/unitezz ...

By: Trend Bazaar

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India's Censorship Board Should Get Bolder - Video

"Time travel requires cosmic censorship." George Smoot, 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics
http://www.nobelprize.org/podcast/ http://tinyurl.com/iTunesNobelPrizeTalks How big is the universe? And how do you stay grounded when working in the mind-bending field of cosmology? In this...

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"Time travel requires cosmic censorship." George Smoot, 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics - Video

Stop UK Internet Censorship - Indiegogo Update
The UK is moving dangerously close to internet censorship and we need your help to stop it! Recently the Government, with the help of religious lobby groups, has persuaded ISP #39;s to introduce...

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Stop UK Internet Censorship - Indiegogo Update - Video

Image: Mashable Composite. Wikimedia Commons

By Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai2014-05-16 19:15:49 UTC

Google and Wikipedia appear to be the latest victims of Iran's online censorship efforts, just two days after the Iranian government repeated once again that it's planning to loosen its grip on the Internet.

Iran has reportedly blocked access to another Google service, the hosting platform Google Sites, and censored at least two sensitive Wikipedia pages in Farsi in the last couple of days. It's unclear at this point if these blocks are government mandated, but if they are, activists think they would expose the Iranian government's double-sided stance on Internet freedom.

Ever since President Hassan Rouhani was elected last year, his government has pledged to open up to the Internet, while, at the same time, it has steadily censored various services and websites, and even jailed 16 tech bloggers. Twitter and Facebook also still remain blocked in Iran, even though Rouhani, as well as other members of the government, routinely use them.

On Wednesday, Iran announced that it was planning to loosen Internet censorship by using so-called "smart filters," which would allow the government to block only specific "depraved and immoral" websites and leave others untouched, according to Communications Minister Mahmoud Vaezi.

Iran has a long history of blocking Wikipedia sites, as previous research has shown, but these latest blocks, activists warn, seem to indicate that the future is more of the same, rather than more freedom.

"The fact that pages on Wikipedia are now being censored is a troubling harbinger of a tighter hold on access to information, as opposed to the notion that these new technologies will allow for 'looser censorship,'" Mahsa Alimardani, an Iranian Internet researcher based in Toronto, told Mashable.

On Friday, Nariman Gharib, an Iranian researcher based in London reported that the Wikipedia pages about the 1979 Iranian Revolution and the one about the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran were inaccessible within Iran.

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Iran Takes Aim at Google, Wikipedia in Latest Internet Censorship Effort