The University of Southern California has canceled the valedictory speech of a Muslim American student, saying that “tradition must give way to safety.” But the student, some academics, and others say they believe the institution is silencing her pro-Palestinian views.
The university announced in early April that Asna Tabassum would speak at commencement, but Provost Andrew Guzman said in a statement on Monday that officials had changed their minds.
Guzman cited “the intensity of feelings” driven by “the ongoing conflict in the Middle East,” saying the reaction to Tabassum’s selection “has escalated to the point of creating substantial risks relating to security and disruption at commencement.” The event is scheduled for May 10.
The decision “has nothing to do with freedom of speech,” Guzman said. “There is no free-speech entitlement to speak at a commencement,” he added. “The issue here is how best to maintain campus security and safety, period.”
A university spokesperson didn’t have further comment beyond Guzman’s initial statement.
This is, I think, a way in which they can kind of hide behind security issues.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, an advocacy group for free speech on campus, assailed the university’s decision, calling it “an utterly transparent attempt at censorship.”
Kristen Shahverdian, PEN America’s program director for campus free speech, has another theory: that USC administrators acted in response to external pressure.
“What they’re saying is that they are canceling due to students’ safety concerns,” she said. “And this is, I think, a way in which they can kind of hide behind security issues.”
‘A Message of Hope’
Tabassum disputed administrators’ claims about safety in a statement published on social media.
She said she had met on Sunday with Guzman and the vice president of the university’s safety and assurance team. The team said the university could increase security, but a significant police presence at commencement wasn’t what it wanted to “present as an image,” Tabassum said in her statement.
“I am not surprised by those who attempt to propagate hatred,” she said in the statement. “I am surprised that my own university — my home for four years — has abandoned me.” She pointed out that she not only is a South Asian-American, but also minors in resistance to genocide and has studied the “violent acts” of “ordinary people.”
“I was hoping to use my commencement speech to inspire my classmates with a message of hope,” she wrote. “By canceling my speech, USC is only caving to fear and rewarding hatred.”
Organizations in California and nationally are circulating petitions demanding that USC reinstate Tabassum as a commencement speaker.
USC’s Palestine Justice Faculty Group said in a statement that the university’s decision was “another example of supporting anti-Palestinian and anti-Muslim racism.”
Tabassum had been selected as valedictorian by a faculty committee. More than 200 graduating seniors qualified based on their grade-point averages, and nearly 100 students applied for the honor. The faculty committee sent a recommendation to Guzman, the provost, who made the final decision.
The criteria used to make the selection, Guzman said in his statement, “did not include social-media presence.” A campus group called Trojans for Israel said that Tabassum had posted a link in her Instagram bio that contained antisemitic language.
Guzman said he would work with faculty members this summer to “reconsider” the selection process for valedictorians.
The controversy is the latest in a series of conflicts over the Israel-Hamas war. Just in the past two weeks, a University of California at Berkeley student disrupted a dinner at the home of the law school’s dean, 20 students were arrested at Pomona College during a protest at the president’s office, and a professor at Hobart and William Smith Colleges was temporarily removed from the classroom over comments about Palestinian resistance in an essay.
Columbia University’s president and board leaders will testify on Wednesday before the U.S. House’s education committee about how the institution has responded to allegations of antisemitism.
Last year another commencement speech drew scrutiny after Fatima Mousa Mohammed, a student at the City University of New York’s School of Law, criticized Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. Mohammed spoke five months before the October 7 attack by Hamas on Israel that killed 1,200 people and touched off the current conflict, which has led to the deaths of 33,000 Palestinians.
In her remarks, Mohammed stated that “Israel continues to indiscriminately rain bullets and bombs on worshipers, murdering the old, the young,” and said that the state encourages “lynch mobs.” CUNY’s chancellor and Board of Trustees called Mohammed’s language “hate speech.”
