President Joe Biden is to deliver the commencement speech next month at Morehouse College in Atlanta. NBC News reports, however, that college leadership and faculty were having a conference call on Thursday to get their feelings on “Genocide Joe” appearing on campus. You know they’d clear any encampments and seal off the place if Biden were to speak.
Morehouse College’s leadership is set to hold a call on Thursday — where faculty will get the chance to speak — to address concerns over having President Biden as the school’s commencement speaker next month. https://t.co/rgwMKmv3PC
— NBC News (@NBCNews) April 25, 2024
NBC News reports:
Commencement season is traditionally a time for presidents to engage with younger audiences and all the energy they bring. But this year, with pro-Palestinian protests — and protests against Biden’s support for Israel — dominating college campuses, these speeches are more fraught. The White House announced this week that Biden will be doing just two commencement addresses this year, at Morehouse and at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.
Morehouse professor Andrew Douglas said many students and faculty are “wrestling” with whether — or how — to protest next month’s commencement.
“I’ve spoken with several faculty members who say under no conditions are they going to sit on a stage with Joe Biden,” Douglas said, adding: “It’s on everybody’s mind.”
Douglas, a political science professor in his 13th year at Morehouse, is a member of the school’s faculty council, the 15-member body that wrote a letter to the school’s president last week expressing “disappointment” upon hearing rumors that Biden had been invited to speak.
But Biden actually attended a historically black college in his youth, where he was at the top of his class.
University officials say the invitation will not be rescinded. This might be a preview of what we’ll see in Chicago during the Democratic National Convention.
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Students at Atlanta’s HBCU Morehouse College say they’re not going to attend Joe Biden’s commencement address because “this is something that’s on his political agenda to get more young black voters.” pic.twitter.com/iqAK8BMZJi
— LivePDDave 🇺🇸 (@LivePDDave1) April 23, 2024
Joe Biden’s planned commencement address at historically Black college Morehouse in Atlanta faces cancelation following massive student protests sweeping the nation against Israel. pic.twitter.com/xUrT5apiGO
— Abdi (@BLACKTIVIST5) April 24, 2024
Go all in on betting that Joe Biden will repeat his lie that he “got started out of an HBCU, Delaware State” while delivering the commencement address at Morehouse:pic.twitter.com/xisclXGecj https://t.co/YgDreSg7p6
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) April 23, 2024
Faculty members are calling on Morehouse College to rescind its invitation to Joe Biden to speak at its 2024 commencement: “Any college or university that gives its commencement stage to President Biden in this moment is endorsing genocide.”https://t.co/y6MTEu8yjC
— Mondoweiss (@Mondoweiss) April 24, 2024
One student questioned whether Biden’s visit and giving him an honorary degree makes Morehouse “complicit” in “genocide.” Thomas said that question “has kept me up at night.” pic.twitter.com/PpAVSbcchi
— Chauncey L. Alcorn (@CLamontLives) April 25, 2024
Only one student spoke in defense of Biden’s visit, underscoring Thomas’ point that having the leader of the free world on campus is good for Morehouse. Other students heckled him. pic.twitter.com/hHaEjtB6iH
— Chauncey L. Alcorn (@CLamontLives) April 25, 2024
The invitation for Biden to speak at Morehouse college is a cynical attempt to split Africans/Black people from Palestinians. It will not work. It is immoral for Africans to vote for this criminal and an insult for him to be invited to the school of Dr. King.
— Ajamu Baraka (@ajamubaraka) April 24, 2024
RACISM: Morehouse College can overlook Biden’s support of segregation, opposition to busing, passage of mass incarceration, and friendships with KKK leaders – but it can’t overlook his support of the Jewish people. Will his invite be canceled? https://t.co/8EzSWX4ssb
— @amuse (@amuse) April 23, 2024
What possessed them to have President Biden as the commencement speaker for MoreHouse?! pic.twitter.com/hAPPLuqNLe
— April Sykes (@AP_Slush24) April 23, 2024
Because he can inspire them with stories about how poor kids are just as smart and talented as white kids.
Let’s hope they go ahead with it and all the students turn their backs on him.
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