Boston University President Robert Brown released a statement on Wednesday denouncing graduating students for booing and shouting at Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav during the commencement ceremony.

Zaslav, a Boston University alumnus, was asked to give a commencement speech for the Class of 2023 on May 21, which sparked controversy among the student body as well as members of the Writers Guild of America East and West, who have been on strike for nearly a month.

As an act of protest and in support of the WGA, several students turned their backs on Zaslav as he gave his speech and some shouted “Pay your writers!” Just outside the stadium, striking film and TV writers and allies protested with picket signs, shouting “No wages, no pages!”

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“I am also disappointed at the insensitivity to our many guests — especially parents and grandparents — who came from far and wide to celebrate the success of a cherished relative,” Brown said in a statement on Wednesday.

He added: “The willingness to spoil the occasion for these literally thousands of guests to not only make a point, but also literally prevent the speaker from conveying his message, was painful and embarrassing to witness.”

Brown described the students’ actions as “appallingly coarse and deliberately abusive to Mr. Zaslav,” as well as an attempt to “implement” a “cancel culture.” He added that ahead of the ceremony, he had received hundreds of protest emails that explicitly included a “cancel” hashtag to prevent Zaslav from speaking.

“The attempt to silence a speaker with obscene shouts is a resort to gain power, not reason, and antithetical to the mission and purposes of a university,” Brown said in the statement.

After the Boston University ceremony, Zaslav expressed support for the striking writers.

“I am grateful to my alma mater, Boston University, for inviting me to be part of today’s commencement and for giving me an honorary degree, and, as I have often said, I am immensely supportive of writers and hope the strike is resolved soon and in a way that they feel recognizes their value,” Zaslav said in the statement, according to WBUR-FM.

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More than 11,000 film and TV writers across the country went on strike on May 2 for the first time in 15 years after the WGA was unable to make a deal with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) before the contract deadline. Nearly a month later, writers are still on strike, calling for equitable pay, sustainable working conditions and protections around the use of artificial intelligence. (Unionized employees of HuffPost are members of the WGA East.)

Brown noted in his statement that the decision for Zaslav to be the commencement speaker happened long before the strike began on May 2. News that Zaslav would speak at the ceremony sparked criticism and an online campaign from students, alumni, the WGA and other labor unions.

But the college didn’t change its decision. A spokesperson for Boston University had told HuffPost earlier this month that there was “no change in plans” regarding the ceremony.

“Right now, 11,500 WGA members across the country are on strike because companies — including Warner Bros. Discovery — refuse to negotiate a fair contract that addresses writers’ reasonable demands around pay, residuals, and the existential threat that AI poses to workers,” the union said in a statement. “It is shameful that, in the midst of an action to preserve the future of work, Boston University would use a graduation ceremony to honor someone intent on destroying its students’ prospects to build sustainable careers.”

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