USC Valedictorian Asna Tabassum Plans To Attend Commencement As Pressure Grows

The University of Southern California’s decision to cancel its valedictorian’s commencement speech has set off a campaign of external and internal pressure on the university to let Asna Tabassum speak as originally planned.

USC’s 2024 valedictorian, Tabassum, says she still plans to attend her school’s commencement ceremony in May, even though she will no longer be allowed to speak.

“I have not received any communication from (the) university about my attendance. I still plan on attending the graduation ceremony,” she told LAist. “I love USC, and I am truly honored and humbled to have been selected as the USC Class of 2024 Valedictorian.”

Being valedictorian, she said, was an honor for her and a “victory” for “hijabis, Muslims, South Asians, (and) first generation Americans.”

Asna Tabassum

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Courtesy Asna Tabassum

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On Monday, USC announced that it was canceling Tabassum’s speech due to unspecified safety concerns because of campus tensions related to the Israel-Hamas War. However, Los Angeles Police Officer Jeff Lee confirmed to LAist that they do not have a crime report open on the security threats.

LAist has not received a response to an inquiry about any additional security measures the university has taken given that Tabassum confirmed she plans to attend. But in a notice posted Friday, the university said that "given the highly publicized circumstances" surrounding our main-stage commencement program, all outside previously scheduled speakers and honorees would be honored at a later date. That would include keynote speaker Jon Chu, best known for directing the film Crazy Rich Asians.

Tabassum’s selection as valedictorian drew criticism from the group Trojans for Israel for touting what they called “anti-Zionist rhetoric." Tabassum has received backlash for a website she linked to on her Instagram profile that contains a list of books and documentaries about Palestinian history and politics. She also links to an external website, created by Palestinians, that “covers Palestinian history/politics and debunks common Zionist myths.”

But Tabassum said she's been overwhelmed by the support she's receiving.

“We’re sparking some important conversations about our values at a magnitude I never dreamed of,” she said. “We’re making lemonade out of lemons.”

On Thursday, hundreds of students and faculty members marched on campus in a peaceful protest, chanting “Let her speak!” An external petition started by the Council on American-Islamic Relations Greater LA office has garnered more than 40,000 signatures calling on USC to reinstate Tabassum’s speech.

Students and faculty protest USC's decision to cancel the valedictory address at commencement.

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Courtesy Alan Mittelstaedt

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Around 150 faculty members have also penned a letter to university President Carol Folt, Provost Andrew Guzman and the Board of Trustees saying the decision contradicts the university’s values of diversity, equity and inclusion and “stifles open communication.”

“Diversity, equity, and inclusion require the inclusion of a variety of points of view and experience,” the letter states. “The promotion of well-being includes the well-being of communities beyond our campus borders. Above all, this decision does not reflect our collective commitment to act with integrity.”

In a statement, the university said the decision "had nothing to do with the background or viewpoint of the valedictorian, but was instead based on a careful and holistic review of the situation from a safety and security standpoint.”

“Nothing can take precedence over the safety of our community,” the statement added.

Campus debate

The university’s unprecedented decision to cancel a valedictory speech, for the first time since its founding in 1880, comes at a time when college campuses have been roiled with debate because of the Israel-Hamas war. At Columbia University, law enforcement was called in to disband a pro-Palestinian protest and earlier this month, police in riot gear arrested 19 people at Pomona College.

Tabassum said she believes her experience is “an extension of the censorship that universities are doing of students across the nation.”

“On college campuses everywhere, we are seeing examples of students who are courageously exercising their first amendment rights to stand up for the human rights of those who are oppressed and silenced in Palestine,” she told LAist. “I never expected to join the ranks of those students, but am humbled to lend my voice to the fight for justice.”

Tabassum told LAist that her minor in resistance to genocide was inspired by the Shoah Foundation’s archives, which informed her viewpoint “on equality and humanization” and inspired her to become an interviewer for the Health and Human Rights Oral History Project housed at USC.

“Lessons from these experiences are central to my insistence upon human rights for all people, including Palestinians,” she said.

Faculty weighs in

Laurie Brand, a professor emerita who’s studied international relations and the Middle East, is also part of the USC Palestine Justice Faculty Group, comprised of roughly 25 interdisciplinary faculty members. The group released a statement calling the university’s decision “another example of USC’s egregious pattern of supporting anti-Palestinian and anti-Muslim racism.”

Brand said the group felt compelled to weigh in on the university’s decision based on academic freedom and the backlash Tabassum has received for supporting Palestinian human rights.

“There's nothing in any of Asna’s statements that suggests that she's antisemitic at all,” Brand said. “She simply is a young woman who is concerned with universal values, and that's demonstrated in a number of statements that she's made.”

In the lead up to commencement, Brand said, various groups and faculty are looking to come together to try and lobby the university.

USC students and faculty protest the administration's decision to cancel the valedictory speech at commencement.

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Courtesy USC Muslim Student Union

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On Wednesday, Brent Blair, a USC School of Dramatic Arts professor, donned a Star of David necklace, a kippah and a prayer shawl as he stood in front of the campus’ Tommy Trojan statue with a sign that read, “Jewish Faculty In Support of Asna Tabassum. Let Her Speak.”

While Blair said he does not “prefer” the language in Tabassum’s social link, he wrote a letter to the provost about his concerns that the “free exchange of ideas” is being challenged and that the university’s decision “infantilizes her for us to assume that she cannot maintain a sense of decorum.”

He said he will continue his protests hoping for a change of heart by the university.

Prior precedent?

In another letter sent to President Folt and Provost Guzman, Donald Miller, a professor of religion at USC, wrote about the time he helped bring Archbishop Desmond Tutu to speak on campus in 1986, when South Africa’s apartheid was being debated.

“More than 3,000 students gathered in front of the Doheny Library steps where a stage had been constructed,” he wrote. “Because there had been death threats against Tutu, the entire front of the stage was lined with LAPD officers and many more were on the perimeter of the large audience of students.”

When asked if a similar security arrangement can be made for the upcoming commencement ceremony, Lee from the LAPD told LAist he didn't know. But a crime report is needed, he said, to establish a potential victim and investigate.

By canceling Tabassum’s speech, Miller writes that the university has “created a situation that will invite protests, send a horrible message to our Muslim community, and tarnish the reputation of the university.”

Wider community pressure

Hasna El-Nounou, a programs manager at Muslim Student Association West, a nonprofit organization that supports 40 Muslim student associations in California, Arizona and Nevada, said the organization was in touch with Tabassum before it was announced that her speech had been canceled.

El-Nounou and her team provided emotional support to Tabassum and gave her guidance, while Muslim community members provided assistance in crafting her public statement. The group went on to mobilize students and others to voice their opposition to the university’s decision.

“It's a very difficult time for the Muslim community as a whole,” El-Nounou said, “but definitely a very tumultuous and emotionally rigorous time for college students in particular.”