South Carolina State University decided Wednesday not to have Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette speak at its May 8 commencement after students on the Orangeburg campus protested the planned appearance and safety concerns grew around the ceremony.
The removal set off a sharper fight the next day, when student leaders at South Carolina State’s board of trustees meeting received a standing ovation at the first board gathering since the decision became public Tuesday. Board Chairman Douglas Gantt said he was the one who organized bringing Evette to commencement and that university President Alexander Conyers did not deserve the backlash over the change. "All I’m trying to say is...for the president, and all he’s done for the university, did not deserve the ridicule because he’s only asked to do what the chairman is asking him to do," Gantt said.
Evette said she had received an invitation in December to speak at commencement and pushed back Thursday on the students who objected to her selection because they said her political leanings do not align with the state’s only publicly funded historically Black university. She referred to the protestors multiple times as a "woke mob" and said, "I didn’t intend to apologize" for the term.
South Carolina State, often identified by its full name SC State, is the state’s only publicly funded historically Black university, which made the speaker choice especially charged on campus. Students had argued that Evette’s politics did not fit the school’s mission, while Gantt said the university needs to work across political, racial and gender lines for its own future. "And that is walking into rooms to help us get funding. Not just for the kids now, but for the kids who are to come later. That’s the whole purpose of having this role," he said.
It remained unclear Thursday whether SC State would name a replacement speaker for commencement, leaving the school to settle both the logistics and the politics of an event now overshadowed by the fight over who should stand at the podium.