As RedState reported last Saturday, the University of Southern California (USC) had announced the previous Friday that it was canceling all scheduled speakers at its 2024 commencement ceremony because of virulent antisemitic statements made by this year’s valedictorian.
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In other words, cancel the good because the bad is horrific.
Then, as we reported on Thursday, USC caved in and canceled the entire main stage commencement ceremony itself.
Meanwhile, the pro-Hamas, pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel, antisemitic insanity continues.
Is there any question that USC’s cancelation of the commencement enabled the demonstrators? Any question that the cancelation was irresponsible? No— and not in the view of George Washington University law professor and regular Fox News contributor Jonathan Turley, either.
In a Friday column titled “Problem Solved? USC Cancels Graduation to Avoid Pro-Palestinian Protesters,” Turley wrote:
The University of Southern California (USC) is under fire this week after announcing that it had a solution to the possible pro-Palestinian protests at the graduation: it cancelled the graduation. It is both enabling and irresponsible.
Rather than protect students and their families at this important and well-earned event in their lives, the university is yielding to the mob. It is a feckless and feeble response to what should have been an easy decision for any administrator.
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While Turley was right that it should have been an easy decision, decisions are sometimes damn hard for liberals when they find themselves in the unenviable but necessary political position of having to play both sides against the middle.
We’ve seen the dangerous dog and pony show play out with Joe Biden’s intentionally created illegal alien crisis for more than three years, and we continue to see it with his failed attempt to placate both Israel and the “Palestinians” (Muslim American voters) as the Jewish state continues its justified war against Hamas.
Turley noted Fox News national correspondent Bill Melugin, who reported:
USC announces it is cancelling its main stage commencement ceremony. Comments shut off. Brutal for the class of ‘24. Likely didn’t get a high school graduation during COVID in 2020, and now won’t get a traditional college graduation.
In reference to the previously mentioned USC valedictorian, Turley said:
The cancellation came after USC selected valedictorian, Muslim biomedical engineering student Asna Tabassum to give a commencement speech. That offer was then rescinded after her critics accused her of promoting anti-Israel rhetoric on social media. The school then announced that there would be no such student commencement address.
Professor Turley called it “irresponsible.” In my book, USC was spineless and cowardly as hell. The message sent, not only to the demonstrators but also to antisemites across America, was: “We hear you, we fear you, we’re afraid of you, and we’re going to cave in.” Raise your hand if you think that insanity defuses the madness.
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Finally, Turley absolutely nailed it at the end of his column.
The problem of violent protests and threats on campus is not solved by removing the potential victims. To yield this ground is to surrender control over not just the campus but the academic operations of the school. Higher education has to aspire to be more than a mere mobocracy where threats not logic prevail.
Sadly, Professor Turley, the once-hallowed halls of academia no longer exist.
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