A graduating student at Duke University faced heavy criticism after delivering a commencement address that shared “striking similarities” with a Harvard University graduation speech from 2014. During her commencement ceremony on May 8, speaker Priya Parkash called her school “the Duke nation” and said it could become its own country due to its various associations and landmarks. Parkash, who is originally from Pakistan, said that “if Duke were to dig a moat around its perimeter and fill that with water, it could be its own tiny island nation, like Cuba or maybe even Sri Lanka.”