Bethune-Cookman alumni demand university drop Betsy DeVos as commencement speaker

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Protesters delivered petitions Tuesday signed by thousands of people demanding that Bethune-Cookman University leaders drop plans for Education Secretary Betsy DeVos to give the keynote address at the historically black college’s commencement Wednesday.

“I was in shock,” said graduating student Jasmine Johnson, describing her reaction when she learned who would address her and her classmates. She doesn’t think DeVos, a philanthropist and strong proponent of school choice, private and charter schools, understands public schools, or historically black colleges.

“For someone to come and speak at my commencement that cannot relate to me or know what I have been through is kind of like a slap in the face,” she said. And she worries her student loans will be even more difficult to pay back after some of DeVos’s actions.

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The university’s president, Edison Jackson, wrote in a letter to the campus community that a willingness to engage with varying viewpoints is a hallmark of higher education. “I am of the belief that it does not benefit our students to suppress voices that we disagree with, or to limit students to only those perspectives that are broadly sanctioned by a specific community,” he wrote. “If our students are robbed of the opportunity to experience and interact with views that may be different from their own, then they will be tremendously less equipped for the demands of democratic citizenship.”

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