College commencement season is upon us, the time for freewheeling and provocative pronouncements from graduation speakers, fitting capstones to an unique period of time in life when we’re afforded the luxury of delving deeply and fearlessly into the world of ideas.

Or so one might think.

The reality is that graduations have become ground zero in the war over thought on campuses, a development that seems to have reached new heights this spring. Getting headlines in recent days have not been the inspired offerings of commencement speakers or those receiving honorary degrees but the stories of those who did not hold forth before graduating classes because, after having been invited to speak or receive honors, they were deemed politically inappropriate choices and their invitations promptly withdrawn.

Making news locally was the decision last month by Brandeis University to withdraw plans to grant an honorary degree to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somalia native who is a women’s rights advocate — and fierce critic of Islam. “We cannot overlook that certain of her past statements are inconsistent with Brandeis University’s core values,” the university said in a statement released eight days after it had announced Ali would be one of five people granted honorary degrees at its May 18 commencement.

The cancelling of Ali’s honorary degree was accompanied by a raft of commencement speaker cancellations. Condi Rice may have an inspiring rags-to-riches story of a black child of the segregated South who became the nation’s secretary of state, but she canceled plans to deliver the commencement address at Rutgers University in the face of student protests. Ditto for Christine Lagarde, head of the International Monetary Fund, who bowed out as Smith College‘s speaker in the face of protests that said the IMF contributes to the “strengthening of imperialistic and patriarchal systems.”

“So, one of the world’s most powerful women will not share insights with one of the nation’s most prominent women’s colleges because of a concern about patriarchy. Evil men – that’ll show ’em,” wrote New York Times columnist Timothy Egan last week in a piece titled “The Commencement Bigots.”

Egan wrote that the politically correct left did not have a monopoly on speech stifling. Attorney General Eric Holder recently canceled plans to address graduates of the Oklahoma City police academy after protesters called for officers to “place Holder in handcuffs” when he appeared, a move endorsed by a local Republican state senator.

One legitimate complaint with the whole commencement rigamarole is that students at most campuses have little say about who is invited to deliver the keynote address at a celebration of their accomplishment. That’s a debate worth having, and some of the protests may well be born of a feeling of voicelessness over speaker choices, but it should be dealt with directly, not by ranting against those slated to speak or receive honorary degrees.

If there was a hint of hope amidst this season’s sea of campus groupthink it came yesterday at Haverford College. The Quaker campus outside Philadelphia had also been part of this year’s commencement controversies, as the former chancellor of the University of California at Berkeley, Robert Birgeneau, withdrew as a scheduled speaker in the face of protests over a 2011 incident in which campus police used force against Berkeley students protesting college costs.

While Haverford students who objected to Birgeneau won the battle to keep him away from yesterday’s festivities, they may have lost the war. One of the other commencement speakers, William Bowen, a former president of Princeton University, scrapped whatever remarks he had planned to deliver and instead used his time before the graduating class to lambaste the students who had railed against Birgeneau. Bowen called them “immature” and “arrogant” and pronounced the episode a “defeat” for Haverford and its Quaker ideals.

Bowen, a highly esteemed leader in higher education who was awarded the National Humanities Medal last year by President Obama, said he in no way endorsed Birgeneau’s 2011 actions — and he criticized the way Birgeneau himself responded to the controversy. But he said nonetheless that the episode points to a troubling development.

“In keeping with the views of many others in higher education,” he said, “I regard this outcome as a defeat, pure and simple, for Haverford – no victory for anyone who believes, as I think most of us do, in both openness to many points of view and mutual respect.”

–MICHAEL JONAS  

BEACON HILL

A state Senate panel plans to examine the roughly 700 boards and commissions that operate under state law following a Globe report last month that found that more than one-third of the 4,800 seats on the various panels were either vacant or filled with holdover appointees.

MUNICIPAL MATTERS

Boston Mayor Marty Walsh raked in $1.4 million in donations from corporations, lobbyists and others who do business with the city to pay for his inaugural festivities and transition, the Globe reports.

CASINOS

The investment group behind the proposed Foxwoods casino in Fall River is looking to buy a 120-acre waterfront parcel to expand the size of the development to three times its original proposal.

No Eastie Casino’s Matt Cameron writes a letter to the Inspector General and the Secretary of State alleging improper actions by the Massachusetts Gaming Commission.

NATIONAL POLITICS/WASHINGTON

New York magazine profiles Chirlane McCray, mayor Bill de Blasio‘s wife.

ELECTIONS

Money is starting to pour into the Sixth Congressional District race, with the US Chamber of Commerce pumping $350,000 into an ad buy on behalf of Republican Richard Tisei, the Associated Press reports.

Tisei isn’t the only gay Republican running for Congress, the Washington Post reports.

The Wall Street Journal spotlights Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell‘s role in heading off a Republican civil war ahead of the 2014 midterms.

BUSINESS/ECONOMY

AT&T and DirecTV announce a $49 billion merger, the Washington Post reports.

EDUCATION

Peabody rejects using the so-called Common Core exam next spring, the Salem News reports.

For the first time ever, Beverly comes out ahead on school choice, with 87 students from other communities going to school at the high school and 66 from Beverly attending school elsewhere. The net inflow means an extra $156,000 for Beverly, the Salem News reports.

At BU’s commencement, Gov. Deval Patrick urges graduates to be wary of electronic devices and social media, the Associated Press reports.

Salaries of public university presidents soaring as student debt keeps rising, Time reports.

U.S. News & World Report offers a pictorial look of a sampling of school lunches around the world on a given day, including a school in France where students were served rice, salmon, ratatouille, a slice of bread, a salad, an orange and a donut.

Things don’t look good when it comes Boston school lunches, as a report commissioned by the city’s school department finds the district’s food service program plagued by widespread dysfunction and cost overruns.

HEALTH CARE

A new report from the state shows hospital profitability improved last year but 11 of the 64 hospitals in Massachusetts posted deficits, including the for-profit Quincy Medical Center, owned by Steward Health Care Systems, which lost $13.7 million.

But nursing homes in the state are feeling squeezed by frozen Medicaid payments, with four Massachusetts nursing homes going out of business over the last five months, according to a new report.

TRANSPORTATION

Freight service by rail to New Bedford has been on the rise because of new trucking regulations and increasing gas prices and officials expect the number of shipments by train to increase even more with completion of track improvements next month.

Eight people were injured when an MBTA bus crashed into guardrail on bridge in Newton and wound up hanging precariously over the Turnpike, NECN reports.

CRIMINAL JUSTICE

Senate President Therese Murray pushed for a job at Probation for the son of a judge, CommonWealth reports.  Judge William Young gives the green light to the defense to introduce evidence of patronage in the hiring of court officers. In an editorial, the Eagle-Tribune says the trial of former Probation chief John O’Brien and two of his top aides is showing a side of Beacon Hill that has always existed but usually been ignored.

Suicide among inmates nationwide is on the rise accounting for more than a third of all inmate deaths, behind disease such as cancer and heart failure but more than drugs or alcohol intoxication.

A homeless man who was shot and wounded by Weymouth police over the weekend when he allegedly lunged at them with a knife had removed a GPS monitoring bracelet he had been required to wear when he was paroled in March.

MEDIA

The New York Times asks for a correction from Ken Auletta and the New Yorker in connection with a piece on fired editor Jill Abramson. The Times also denies her salary was less than her male predecessors.

Jay Carr, the former Globe film critic, dies at age 77. WBUR has an appreciation. Here is the obituary from the Globe‘s Bryan Marquard.

Beyonce and Jay Z release a trailer for a nonexistent movie.