Obama DHS Secretary Withdraws as Speaker at USC Law School After Protests
“he believes that graduations should be free of tension and political controversy and for this reason has decided not to speak”
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Jeh Johnson was supposed to give the commencement, but students protested because of Obama immigration policies. It’s probably also significant that Johnson has taken Trump’s side on saying there is a crisis at the border.
The College Fix reports:
Obama homeland security chief withdraws as graduation speaker following protests
Believe it or not, some critics of the Trump administration’s border enforcement policies are aware that the prior administration started the ball rolling on “family detention.”
Unfortunately for the cause of academic freedom, they are using that knowledge to drive away a graduation speaker whose views differ from theirs.
Jeh Johnson, the second-term secretary of homeland security in the Obama administration, withdrew from speaking at the University of Southern California’s law school commencement after Dean Andrew Guzman told him it was drawing protests.
Legal blog Above the Law has the letter from Guzman to the community:
I informed Secretary Johnson that some faculty and students have raised concerns about the immigration policies of the Obama Administration and, therefore, about having him as our commencement speaker. Secretary Johnson shared with me that he believes that graduations should be free of tension and political controversy and for this reason has decided not to speak.
It sounds like Guzman was asking Johnson to withdraw, and Johnson took the hint. It’s an indirect disinvitation, and should be added to the “disinvitation database” maintained by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.
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