Republican leaders in South Carolina are moving to ensure that no taxpayer-funded college in the state can again silence a commencement speaker simply because that speaker is a conservative.
Their effort follows a high-profile controversy at South Carolina State University (SCSU), where administrators abruptly canceled Republican Lt. Gov. Pamela Evettes May 8 commencement address, citing safety concerns after left-wing student activists objected to her opposition to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs and other conservative positions. According to the Daily Caller, the decision to disinvite Evette from the historically black universitys graduation ceremony has triggered a sharp backlash from Republican lawmakers, who are now seeking to strip a $5 million taxpayer-funded grant earmarked for SCSUs convocation center as a warning shot against ideological censorship on campus.
Evette, a leading GOP contender in South Carolinas open gubernatorial race and a candidate endorsed by both President Donald Trump and term-limited Republican Gov. Henry McMaster, has made clear she backs the legislative push. She told the Daily Caller News Foundation (DCNF) that state officials have a responsibility to use the power of the purse to defend free expression when public institutions cave to partisan pressure.
Any institution that gets and receives state taxpayer dollars that tries to stop conservative speech, we must take their money away, their state money, the lieutenant governor said. Thats all we control. We must take their state money away. Full stop.
Student activists at SCSU targeted Evette over a familiar list of grievances that have become litmus tests for the progressive left: her opposition to DEI, her pro-life stance on abortion, her support for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and her alliance with Trump. Evette, who has refused to apologize for any of those positions, has repeatedly described the demonstrators as a woke mob, underscoring the growing divide between conservative officials and activist-driven campus culture at the states only public, historically black four-year university.
Republican State Rep. Melissa Lackey Oremus, one of the lawmakers leading the charge to rescind the $5 million convocation center earmark, said the legislature cannot directly run SCSU but can absolutely dictate how taxpayer funds are used. Oremus told the DCNF that while we cant run the school and the state at the same time, we can be vocal about what they can and cant do with state funds.
On June 1, Oremus spearheaded a letter to members of the state budget conference committee, urging them to remove the $5 million line item from the final spending plan. The letter framed the move not as an attack on SCSU as an institution, but as a necessary stand for viewpoint diversity and constitutional rights at state-funded colleges.
[W]e are asking that this item not be included in the conference report to send a strong signal that free speech at state funded institutions of higher education will not be prevented, Oremus and her fellow Republicans wrote. The lawmakers warned that allowing a small group of activists to dictate who may speak at a public university would set a dangerous standard for the entire higher-education system.
It is a horrible example and precedent when a publicly funded university caves in to the wishes of a few students to cancel a speaker and limits the right of an entire student body to hear the words of someone just because they dont like the politics of that person, the letter added. This cannot be tolerated.
The funding fight is unfolding as South Carolina lawmakers finalize the state budget, which is scheduled to take effect July 1, according to local outlet WLTX. That timing gives conservatives in the legislature a narrow but critical window to tie financial consequences to what they see as a blatant act of political discrimination by SCSUs leadership.
Oremus has publicly endorsed Evettes gubernatorial bid, but she insisted to the DCNF that the budget maneuver is not intended to hurt or punish SCSU in a way that they cant come back from financially. Instead, she characterized the move as a clear warning that silencing conservatives will carry a price when taxpayer dollars are involved.
Evette recounted that SCSU first reached out to her office in December 2025, when a representative asked if she would deliver the universitys May 2026 commencement address. She accepted the invitation, expecting a routine graduation appearance rather than a political firestorm.
Not a whole lot of anything really happened from December until all of this broke loose just about a month ago, she added. The controversy only erupted when student activists, apparently encouraged by faculty and outside ideological currents, began organizing against her appearance.
According to Oremus, the person who initially pushed for Evette to speak was Douglas Gantt, chairman of the SCSU Board of Trustees. Gantt, who is black, is himself a Republican, underscoring that the invitation originated from within the universitys own leadership rather than being imposed by state officials.
Evette said the protest initially started as kind of a sit-in but quickly escalated into a lot of angry protesters saying a lot of things. She also noted that she began receiving a lot of really disturbing messages through social media and email as activists intensified their campaign to block her from the stage.
In the end, SCSU officials contacted attorneys in the governors office and basically said they were going to have to rescind the invitation, citing safety concerns, the lieutenant governor told the DCNF. I was just flabbergasted, because every convention speech I give talks about this amazing country we live in.
With Evette disinvited, the university turned to internal leaders to fill the keynote slot, handing the May 8 commencement address to National Alumni Association President Yolanda Williams and Student Government Association President Zaria Tucker. The substitution allowed administrators to appease the protesters while avoiding a direct confrontation over ideological bias, but it also cemented the impression among conservatives that the hecklers veto now governs public campuses.
Evette emphasized that her prepared remarks did not include any discussion of DEI, ICE, Trump or the other hot-button issues cited by the protesters. Instead, she said she had planned to share a personal, aspirational message about the fact that my grandparents were immigrants, and my dad was a tool and die maker and if you work hard and you follow your dreams, you can be whatever you want to be.
It is not like it was ever going to be a political talk, Oremus said. She wasnt going to be like, Oh, Im MAGA or this, or anything like that. Its basically inspirational to inspire them to the next level. Do your best, be the best you can be.
From Oremuss perspective, the episode illustrates a broader problem in higher education: the drift from education toward ideological conditioning. We all want to see them thrive and educate our children the best. But if youre going to educate our children and indoctrinate our children, we dont send our kids to college to be indoctrinated. We encourage them to be free thinkers and be exposed to a lot of different things, she said. And this is the kind of thing that were stopping right now.
Evette has not limited her criticism to SCSUs handling of the commencement; she has also become one of the states most vocal advocates for ending tenure protections for university professors. In an April 29 statement issued immediately after she was disinvited, she argued that the root problem is professors who gin up feigned outrage to the detriment of their students, whom they should be teaching to think critically. End tenure now!
Her opposition to tenure predates the SCSU controversy and intensified after the assassination of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk on a college campus, an event that shocked conservatives nationwide. In a September 2025 op-ed for The Post and Courier, Evette condemned the reaction of multiple professors and teachers who had celebrated or spoke favorably about the conservative activists murder, and she renewed that criticism in her interview with the DCNF.
After the political assassination of Charlie Kirk, I was very direct to the media when I said we should stop tenure on college campuses, because there were so many professors saying so many disgusting things after a human being had just been murdered, Evette told the DCNF. So many were saying, Well, these professors have tenure, our hands are tied, or our options are limited. Its like, well, then we should just do away with that.
For Evette, the pattern is unmistakable: conservative students and speakers are increasingly marginalized, while radical faculty and activists face few consequences. Conservative speech has got to be protected everywhere, and I feel like you know what I hear from students, and what I hear from parents, and what Ive heard from my own children is that if you are on a college campus and you are a conservative thinker, you basically have to hide that side of you, she said.
Asked what she would do as governor to combat censorship of dissenting views on campus, Evette stressed the need for real accountability tied to state funding. She argued that public institutions must understand that their access to taxpayer dollars depends on their willingness to uphold genuine free speech, not just progressive orthodoxy.
If you receive state taxpayer dollars, then you have to do the right thing, and you have to allow really free speech, she said. And that means no matter what you think, conservative or not. And so, I dont think it would take long for everybody to realize that the state means business.
Evette said the current budget fight over SCSUs convocation center is part of that broader message. I just think that were going to send a very good message to all institutions that you have to do the right thing, you have to do the right thing for all students, not just a portion of the students that sit on your campus, she added, praising the effort led by Oremus and her colleagues.
For Oremus, the principle at stake is simple but often ignored when conservatives are the ones under fire. She told the DCNF that with regard to free speech, everybodys all on board until its the opposite viewpoint, but we cant be that way.
As South Carolinas budget deadline approaches, the showdown over SCSUs funding has become a test case for whether Republican lawmakers are willing to leverage their constitutional authority to rein in ideological excess on campus. Evette and her allies are betting that voters, especially parents frustrated with the leftward tilt of higher education, will support using fiscal pressure to defend the rights of conservative speakers and students who increasingly feel they must hide that side of themselves just to get a degree.
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