Pamela Evette Sc State removal reshapes May 8 commencement

South Carolina State University removed Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette from its commencement plans on Wednesday after student protests and safety concerns over pamela evette sc state. The decision changed the school’s May 8 ceremony and put the board’s role in the invitation under fresh scrutiny.

Evette said she had received an invitation in December to speak at commencement. News of the change broke Tuesday and drew protests on the Orangeburg campus, where students said her political leanings did not fit the state’s only publicly funded historically Black university.

Douglas Gantt on SC State

Board Chairman Douglas Gantt said Thursday that he organized bringing Evette to commencement. At the South Carolina State University Board of Trustees meeting, the first since the removal decision, Gantt defended President Alexander Conyers and said he did not deserve backlash for carrying out the board’s direction.

“All I’m trying to say is...for the president, and all he’s done for the university, did not deserve the ridicule because he’s only asked to do what the chairman is asking him to do,” Gantt said Thursday. He added, “And that is walking into rooms to help us get funding. Not just for the kids now, but for the kids who are to come later. That’s the whole purpose of having this role.”

Pamela Evette and protests

Evette, South Carolina’s lieutenant governor and a Republican candidate for governor, referred to student protesters as a “woke mob.” She said Thursday that she did not intend to apologize for that remark. The clash left the university with a public speaker decision that had already moved from an invitation in December to a protest-driven reversal by Wednesday.

SC State has not said whether it will name a replacement speaker for the May 8 commencement. For students and families planning around the ceremony, the speaker slot remains open while the university absorbs the fallout from the decision that removed Evette from the stage.