A top official from Morehouse College on Monday said the school is standing by its decision to have President Joe Biden serve as the 2024 commencement speaker despite backlash from students and faculty over Biden's support for Israel in its war with Hamas.
Morehouse, a historically Black college that counts civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. among its alumni, announced last week that Biden would deliver the keynote address on its Atlanta campus during the graduation ceremony on May 19.
Shortly after the announcement, a number of Morehouse alumni reportedly drafted a letter calling on the college to drop the president's commencement address over his support for Israel soon after the speech was announced.
"In inviting President Biden to campus, the college affirms a cruel standard that complicity in genocide merits no sanction from the institution that produced one of the towering advocates for nonviolence of the twentieth century," the letter said, according to the Associated Press.
In a Monday interview with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Morehouse Provost and Senior Vice President of Academic Affairs Kendrick Brown said the school would not be rescinding its invitation to the president.
"There are of course opinions saying that we should rescind the invitation," Brown told the newspaper. "But there are a number of individuals who recognize this opportunity and the prominence of the speaker and an opportunity for Morehouse to highlight its mission and to be able to use this venue to ask important questions. So from that perspective, we have not, at this point, thought about rescinding anything."
Around 1,200 people were killed during the surprise Hamas attack on October 7 in Israel, while Israel's ongoing assault on Gaza has resulted in more than 34,000 deaths, according to local health officials reported by the Associated Press.
Biden has maintained his support for Israel, but he has also criticized the humanitarian situation in Gaza and called for aid. Last week, he signed a bill authorizing $26 billion for Israel and humanitarian aid for Gaza and other places.
Student protesters at colleges across the country continue to protest against Israel's actions in Gaza and Biden's support for Israel, and Morehouse professor Andrew Douglas told NBC News last week that faculty and students were "wrestling" over protesting the president.
When asked by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution how Morehouse has avoided protests, Brown said the college encourages the faculty and students to have opinions, and he feels "the role of a college is to bring those strong perspectives into dialogue safely and certainly, without disrupting the operations of the college.
"We've had that commitment, we encourage folks to express themselves and we'll do our best as a college to ensure things are safe, but college is meant to be that space. And I think having that attitude has enabled us to have dialogue with our students, faculty and staff."
Brown also noted that the college will be working with the Secret Service on "security protocols" for when the president visits.
Update 4/29/24, 3:37 p.m. ET: This story has been updated to include more information.
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