Morehouse students, faculty criticize Biden as commencement speaker

During an emergency town hall meeting between Morehouse College students, faculty, and administration personnel in Atlanta, students asked President David A. Thomas why he allowed U.S. President Joe Biden to be the commencement speaker for the upcoming graduation in May.

One student shared his frustration by saying, “Right now I’m being told that we need to use our platform as Morehouse men. Why are we using it to support someone who hasn’t been supporting Palestine and Gaza and things like that? How are we being global cosmopolitan citizens? What precedent does that set?”

Another person at the town hall brought up the topic of genocide. “There’s a possibility of a genocide happening. And we’re seeing our government continuing sending more and more weapons, two-thousand-pound bombs that are being dropped on whole neighborhoods. Schools being destroyed, hospitals being destroyed.”

Someone in the crowd asked the president, “your personal or professional opinion as an educator, as a man of this country, what do you think? Are the people of Gaza being genocided or are they not?”

“I’m not going to answer that question,” said Morehouse President David A. Thomas.

Thomas defended the decision saying, “We have a whole platform at Morehouse that the world pays attention to, and we call people to that platform who are important people to the world. The president of the United States is one of those people,” said Thomas. He went on to say that the decision for President Biden to be the commencement speaker occurred in September of 2023, prior to the events of today’s Middle East conflict.

Critics dispel President Thomas’ comments by hypothetically asking would he feel the same way if former President Donald Trump was the current president.