Betsy DeVos delivers commencement speech to Bethune-Cookman
It's been about a week and a half since Bethune-Cookman University announced that Betsy DeVos would be delivering the historically black college's commencement speech. In that time, protest petitions have drawn thousands of signatures and calls for the school president's resignation have cropped up — as NPR's Anya Kamenetz lays out here.
Yet the controversy has done little to derail the lightning-rod secretary of education's speech, which is scheduled for noon ET Wednesday. You can watch that speech live below.
Anya explains why many students and alumni were angered by the decision to invite DeVos:
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"Earlier this year, DeVos called HBCUs "real pioneers when it comes to school choice," a remark she was forced to walk back after protests; in fact, these colleges were founded as the only option for students, when other colleges were still legally segregated. Just this week, DeVos found herself clarifying comments by President Trump that seemed to suggest that a key form of funding for HBCUs might be unconstitutional."
Within hours of the announcement at the start of this month, the school in Daytona Beach, Fla., began actively defended its decision to invite DeVos.
"One of the lasting hallmarks of higher education is its willingness to engage, explore, and experience that which we deem as 'other,' " President Edison O. Jackson said in an open letter to the school community.
"When we seek to shelter our students and campus communities from views that are diametrically opposed to their own," he continued, "we actually leave our students far less capable of combating those ideas. ... We cannot, and we will not, ever accomplish this if we continue to exist in ideological, social, and racial silos."
The school has also pushed back against claims that protest petition signatures number in the tens of thousands, pointedly tweeting an image of empty cardboard boxes.
In the hours leading up to the speech, no reports have emerged of disruptive protests, and demonstrations outside the venue have remained relatively small and peaceful.