I would consider Milton Friedman very intellectual. I would also classify him as on the conservative side of the ledger. Some might even call him right wing. He certainly would have made a good commencement speaker.

There is a danger of groupthink that anyone who doesn't follow the du-jour trends of college life must be an anti-intellectual. Young people should be aware of this as they leave college and enter the real world. Few things are as insufferable as a young person who plasters their political views into a workplace without respect for the people they work with.

Milton Friedman would be considered a liberal by modern conservatives, really. Accepting that monetary policy can be effective is heresy to the conservatives who currently wield power.

But yes, Milton Friedman would be an excellent commencement speaker. I'm sure there are more great academic conservatives who would be equally good, but very few of them are well-known enough to be considered even if the students wanted a conservative.

He also advocated negative income tax, which is essentially communism to the right.

The veracity of each of those statements would increase substantially with a well placed "some".

They are also very self-congratulatory.