SC Republicans push to defund HBCU after it canceled Republican commencement speaker

FIRST ON FOX: South Carolina Republicans are pushing to defund the state’s only public HBCU after the university rescinded Republican Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette’s admissions invitation following student protests and security concerns.

What started as a student protest against a conservative speaker resulted in “credible security threats,” according to Evette, who spoke to Fox News Digital after her commencement speech at South Carolina State University was canceled. Following outcry from students, who criticized Evette’s views on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), abortion, and her support for President Donald Trump, among other issues, the university president issued a statement saying that “out of concern for safety,” the university would be “relocated.”[ing] in a different direction for this start of spring. »

“From the outset, our decision to invite Lieutenant Governor Pamela Evette as a speaker for the Spring 2026 commencement ceremony was rooted in her journey as a business leader and entrepreneur. As the founder and former CEO of a company that grew from a start-up to a billion-dollar company, she represents the kind of innovation, resilience and real-world success that aligns with the aspirations of our graduates,” the release read. “We are grateful to Lt. Governor Evette for her willingness to engage with our students and for the time and consideration she gave in accepting the invitation.”

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South Carolina Lieutenant Governor Pamela Evette announces her candidacy for governor on July 14, 2025. (Joshua Boucher/The State/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)

Pressure from students, including multiple protests around the South Carolina State campus, led to the final decision to rescind Evette’s invitation, which the lieutenant governor said was sent to her in December. The lieutenant governor told Fox News Digital that she has never posted her address or publicly shared what she will talk about.

Evette described the protesters as a “woke mob,” which earned her backlash, but she refused to back down from that statement when speaking to Fox News Digital. According to Evette, South Carolina state attorneys called attorneys in her office, telling them the reason for canceling the event was due to “credible threats.”

“This is what we’ve seen all over the country,” Evette, who is also running for governor of the Palmetto State, told Fox News Digital. “Someone with a conservative point of view comes along and everyone wants to write him off. We saw it with Charlie Kirk, and we saw it with Riley Gaines, and we saw it with Ben Shapiro. I never thought I would be on this kind of list, but here we are and it’s a shame and it has to end.“

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Alexander Conyers, president of South Carolina State University, announced the decision to rescind Evette’s invitation to applause from students — a decision he said he made personally. In a video of the announcement released by local news, Conyers said he didn’t want people to think South Carolina State students are “thugs” or a mob. »

“We are not a mob. We just realize it,” chanted South Carolina State University students, who repeatedly stressed the peaceful nature of their protests, as they marched in large groups around campus, seen in a video shared by local South Carolina journalist Michael White.

Next, the interim president of South Carolina State University stands next to former President Joe Biden during the school’s 2021 commencement ceremony. (MANDEL NGAN / AFP) (Photo by MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)

“Hey, hey! Ho! Ho! Pamela Evette must go!”, chanted the crowds, including at night, around the campus.

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In another alleged sit-in-style protest, students were filmed inside a campus building denouncing Trump as a pedophile, a bigot, a racist and a supporter of the police.

“It’s not about being conservative, that’s OK, we all have our own political views. But she explicitly said ‘I’m a Trump conservative’. Okay, if you believe in Trump, you support pedophilia, you support bigotry, you support racism, what else, pro-police – the same police that are killing our people – and she also supports ICE,” one of the sit-in protesters can be heard saying in a video circulating on social networks. “She would also like to have – because I’m going to say a concentration camp – that’s not what they call it but you all want to bring whoever is here or in this state. We don’t believe in that.”

Zaria Tucker, president of the South Carolina State Student Government Association, echoed the point that student anger was not about politics during a speech at a board meeting.

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“The beginning is not about politics, it’s about representation. What we need as students. Not someone to come and tell us what they should do as governor, or some other office that they’re running for in this state,” Tucker said in the video shared online by White. “But more so to elevate ourselves as students. So, necessarily, that’s what the main goal will always be, as president of the Student Government Association.”

In response to the decision by Conyers and South Carolina State University, Republican lawmakers from the House Freedom Caucus called the college’s decision “shameful” and “inexcusable” that the university had to cancel Evette’s speech “because her safety could not be guaranteed on a publicly funded campus.”

The campus of South Carolina State University. (Jacob Boomsma)

The letter concluded by requesting that “no funding” be included in the next version of state funding.

“If South Carolina’s lieutenant governor is not welcome due to differing political ideologies and inability to provide security, it is time to defund and reevaluate,” concludes the letter, signed by nine South Carolina state GOP lawmakers.

During Evette’s comments on Fox News Digital, she said that she and current South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster have always ensured that the state’s historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) are funded, noting that despite a Republican supermajority in the state legislature, “we have been very supportive.” Evette added that President Trump “has done more for them than any president in history.”“.

The South Carolina State House is visible in Columbia, South Carolina. (LOGAN CYRUS/AFP via Getty Images)

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During this time, the school invited former Democratic Party Chairman Joe Biden to speak at their commencement ceremony in 2021, when Conyers was then acting president of the school.

“Where are the teachers and where are the leaders and why aren’t they setting the record straight? Why don’t these young people who are obviously very bright – they graduate from college – know these basic facts about what’s going on at the college they attend. »