ATLANTA, Ga. — Morehouse College leadership plans to hold a conference call Thursday to give faculty and staff a chance to speak and to select President Joe Biden as the school’s commencement speaker next month. We plan to address these concerns.
“From our perspective, having a sitting president come to Morehouse presents a really great opportunity,” said Morehouse President Kendrick Brown, who spoke on a conference call tonight with the school’s president. He added that he will be in charge of this. This is in line with Morehouse’s mission and this purpose of being a place that allows us to address social justice issues and moral concerns. ”
Inauguration season is traditionally a time when presidents interact with young audiences and all the energy they bring. But such speeches are even more difficult this year as pro-Palestinian protests and protests against Biden’s support for Israel occupy college campuses. The White House announced this week that Biden will give only 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 “struggling” with whether or how to protest next month’s graduation ceremony.
“I’ve talked to some faculty members and they say they would not stand on stage with Joe Biden under any conditions,” Douglas said. “That’s what everyone thinks.” added.
Douglas, a political science professor in his 13th year at Morehouse, is a member of the school’s faculty council. The faculty association is the 15-person committee that last week wrote a letter to the president expressing “disappointment” after hearing rumors that Biden had been invited to the university. talk.
In response to these concerns, Morehouse leadership decided to cancel the conference call with teachers, but officials said Biden’s invitation would not be rescinded.
“This should have involved more members of the campus community – students, faculty and staff,” Douglas said. “And I don’t know if the decision to move forward would have been made if those conversations had happened.”
He cited “very serious and widespread concerns” about the war in Gaza, claiming that “the Biden administration has engaged in seven months of death and destruction in ways that we neither condone nor support.”
On Wednesday, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre responded to the backlash by telling reporters that graduation ceremonies are intended to focus on graduates and their families.
“It’s obviously not the first time he’s given a commencement speech,” she said. “We understand that we are in a different time, but he always sees this moment as a special time and brings messages and encouragement.” Encouraging graduates and their families This is a message. And we’re going to continue to have these conversations with different communities about what’s going on. got it. It hurts. ”
Morehouse senior Calvin Bell, who voted for Biden in 2020, has similar concerns. He said Biden’s speech was a “distraction” from students’ celebrations during graduation, but also saw the trip as an opportunity to convey students’ concerns about Gaza directly to the president. .
“This is also an opportunity for our students to make their voices heard at a time when war and genocide are escalating in the Middle East,” Bell said.
Professor Douglas acknowledged that discussions with leadership were “unlikely” to lead to the cancellation of Biden’s speech, but said the faculty’s priority was to protect students’ right to protest, and that the school was the only school in the country to teach black men. He mentioned the protests at Morehouse College, where he specializes in education. — could pose different risks than similar protests on other campuses across the country.
“Our priority … is to ensure that under no circumstances do police interact with our students,” Douglas said.
“Our students do not have the privileges that Ivy League students typically have. Conflicts with police can be deadly for students,” he added.
“We have a tradition of being at the forefront of justice movements,” Brown said. “We encourage our students, faculty, and staff to form strong opinions and come together peacefully to address them. So while this is certainly our perspective, this is definitely … It’s an opportunity for our community to work with the president and certainly express different views on the current issues that exist in Israel and Gaza.”
Politically, this speech has several important implications for Biden. Morehouse is located just west of downtown Atlanta in the battleground state of Georgia, a state that Biden narrowly won in 2020. Some state Democrats have expressed concerns about whether Biden can repeat that victory.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s lauded alma mater address will be a unique opportunity for the president to appeal to young black voters, who polls show has lagged behind him.
But with graduation still a month away, plenty of time to change his mind, Douglas said early signs don’t point to a warm welcome. I’ve never had a conversation with him.”
