Overview
- South Carolina State University canceled Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette’s spring commencement address, citing safety concerns, and said it will invite her to a separate campus event at a later date.
- Students and alumni had staged protests and a sit-in and circulated a petition with thousands of signatures, objecting to Evette’s stances on diversity, equity and inclusion, abortion, and her identification as a Trump-aligned conservative.
- Evette labeled demonstrators a “woke mob,” said there were credible threats to safety, and used the controversy in campaign messaging while also calling online for ending DEI programs and faculty tenure.
- Members of the South Carolina House Freedom Caucus sent a letter urging that the public university be cut from the next state budget in response to the cancellation, though no funding change has been enacted.
- The dispute drew national attention as commentators like Charlamagne Tha God defended the students’ right to protest, reflecting how speaker choices at historically Black colleges and universities often carry symbolic weight and invite partisan framing in the press.