If Mayor Eric Adams needed a sign that his commencement speech to law students on Friday was not going to go well, the moment came even before he spoke.
As the dean of the City University of New York School of Law, Sudha Setty, introduced the mayor at a Queens College auditorium on Friday, she noted his time spent on the police force. The crowd booed.
When Mr. Adams took to the stage and began to speak, things got much worse. Many of the newly minted doctors of law, in black gowns and mortar boards, turned their backs to him.
There were more boos and heckles, according to video of the event, which was closed to the press, and according to two people who were in attendance. Even a couple of raised middle fingers, one person said.
The moment was evocative (in reverse) of former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s experience of attending a police funeral early in his tenure, only for officers to turn their backs.
Mr. Adams tends not to give such speeches with prepared remarks in hand, according to his spokesman, Fabien Levy, so there was no script from which to veer. But the mayor, who has something of a combative streak, did quickly tailor his riff to the situation at hand.
“We’re watching a clear lack of desire to even participate in healthy dialogue,” he told the students. He concluded his remarks with a broad smile, commending the graduates for exercising their right to protest, but suggesting that they do more.
“My message today to the graduates,” he said, “my message to those who believe that their beliefs are the only beliefs in a diversified city like New York, my message to you, instead of being a detached spectator in the full contact sport called life, get on the field and participate about improving the lives of the people of this city.”
And so concluded an already difficult week for the mayor of New York City.
Thus far, he has been criticized for his reluctance to condemn Daniel Penny, the white ex-Marine who killed a Black homeless street artist, Jordan Neely, on the subway.
He faced an outcry from upstate officials for his decision to send migrants from the southern border their way.
He sparked an uproar when he suspended aspects of New York City’s decades-old “right to shelter” mandate that require the city to quickly move homeless families into private rooms with kitchens and bathrooms.
The commencement protest against Mr. Adams should not have come as much of a surprise; CUNY School of Law is known as a pipeline for public defenders and tenants rights and labor lawyers.
“CUNY Law school is where the folks who have this ideal of getting a degree to change the inequities in the world go to train how to do it,” said Catalina Cruz, a state assemblywoman from Queens who got her law degree from the school in 2009.
Founded in 1983, its students have a well-known activist streak. At one early graduation, students and teachers played the “Internationale,” a socialist anthem.
Many students are first-generation Americans from communities with limited access to legal services. At last year’s commencement, the school honored Christian Smalls, the Amazon labor organizer.
During his speech, Mr. Adams tried to appeal to those left-leaning sentiments, noting that he was a prominent critic of the Police Department when he was an officer. Students did not seem to find that compelling.
“He’s committed to carceral discrimination against the poor, even if he was an internal reformer when he was in the police,” said Genevieve Ward, 29, a rising second-year student who did not attend the commencement, but did watch a video of the speech.
“It’s disingenuous for himself to align his interest and his interest in police with the interests of what we’re taught at CUNY,” she said. “And also just the timing of it, with the killing of Jordan Neely and his absence of talking about it until two days ago.”
When asked why Mr. Adams had been invited to speak, a spokeswoman for the law school said many elected officials had attended the event to “share greetings” with the graduating class, and then listed the officials.
“Mayor Adams respects the rights of the graduates who peacefully protested today just like he peacefully protested countless times throughout his career,” said Mr. Levy, the mayor’s spokesman. “As the mayor always says, this city may have 8.8 million people, but it also has 35 million opinions.”
The mayor also suffered from poor timing: The speech came amid a budget negotiation season where the mayor is seeking to cut funding across the board, including at CUNY.
“The frustration from CUNY students, faculty and staff is understandable,” said James Davis, the president of the CUNY chapter of the Professional Staff Congress, which represents faculty and staff. “Mayor Adams is cutting CUNY, leaving students without needed resources.”
