A group of nine Republican state representatives are demanding the complete defunding of South Carolina State University after the HBCU rescinded its invitation to Lt. Governor Pamela Evette to speak at its upcoming commencement ceremony.
According to South Carolina State President Alexander Conyers, the HBCU initially invited Evette based on her entrepreneurial background. However, following a series of protests from students who disagreed with the Lt. Governor’s views and policies, President Conyers rescinded her invitation, citing concerns for campus safety if she were to speak at the HBCU.
Prior to President Conyers decision, Evette referred to the student protestors as a “woke mob” and stated that “just like President Trump, [she’ll] never back down or bend a knee to the woke radicals.”
State Representatives Gil Gatch, Thomas Beach, Jackie Terribile, Sarita Edgerton, Josiah Magnuson, John McCravy, Melissa Lackey Oremus, and Cal Forrest Jr. expressed their support of Evette and their disdain for SC State’s decision in a letter to Bruce Bannister, chairman of the South Carolina House Ways & Means Committee.
“It is shameful that a state institution, supported by taxpayer dollars, would capitulate and rescind an invitation to our sitting Lt. Governor – seemingly because some students do not agree with her political views. Institutions of higher learning are intended to be a space where young adults are presented with a variety of viewpoints and ideas, not centers of indoctrination where conservative views are not welcome,” the letter reads.
The lawmakers continue, “We are hereby requesting that no funding for South Carolina State University be included in the second version of the budget. There is no reason why state tax dollars should continue to fund a state institution where not all South Carolinians are welcome. If the Lt. Governor of South Carolina is unwelcome due to different political ideologies and an inability to keep her safe, it is time to defund and reevaluate.”
Before I proceed, let me send a hearty SALUTE and UNSHAKABLE SUPPORT to the critically conscious students at South Carolina State University (SCSU) for publicly espousing your FREEDOM of SPEECH RIGHTS as defined in the US CONSTITUTION. Let’s began with our response to the racist, entitled, and intellectually insecure South Carolina Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette (LGE).
Whoever was the person at SCSU who had the audacity to offer LGE an invite to give the 2026 Spring Commencement address on Friday, May 8, 2026, should submit their RESIGNATION effective immediately. For those who dissent, they must hold membership to the so-called Black establishment class who literally represent nothing but a pure existential threat to SCSU on numerous levels.
Back to LGE and her misguided and dimwitted comments about SCSU students demanding that she be disinvited from giving the commencement address. It’s quite apparent that LGE is having a mental relapse back to this pollyannish Southern and racial nostalgia under the guise of this new and improved twenty-first century Jim Crow. As such, LGE somehow believes her White ontological expansiveness is applicable to the SCSU students. Unfortunately, LGE’s Whiteness doesn’t carry the same value and impact as it did decades ago in South Carolina. As result, LGE resorts to the sort of budgetary terrorism against SCSU by “demanding a full funding cut in the next budget.” What makes matter even worse is that you have a cabal of nine White racist South Carolina state legislators who support this White fragility.
Moving forward, I challenge the entire faculty at SCSU to write a collective open letter to LGE and to the racist South Carolina state legislators challenging them and their racist proclivities. Again, for those who dissent, has there ever been calls for a cut in funding from LGE or White Republican state legislators for the racist attacks (i.e., White students and even a few White faculty) against Black American at Winthrop University (2026), Coastal Carolina University (2026), Clemson University (2024) or even University of South Carolina (2024)? I wonder why! Can you say White entitlement and White fragility. More importantly, these insecure White politicians in South Carolina need to realize that people get disinvited all the time at American universities across the country from the likes of Former Secretary of State Dr. Condoleezza Rice at Rutgers University, The White DEI Secretary of Education, Sharon McMahon at Utah Valley University to Manhattan Institute Senior Fellow Jason Riley at Virginia Tech.
In close, I commend the students at SC State University for standing up to a particular type of Whites in South Carolina who aspire to reinstitute a twenty-first century higher education caste system at SCSU. Too bad for you, those days are long gone and will be consistently meet with organized, strategic, operational, and tactical resistance.
Amandla! (Power, in isiZulu)
HBCU Watch