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“I challenge us to respond to ideological discomfort with dialogue and learning, not bigotry and censorship,” Asna Tabassum said after USC said they were concerned about"maintaining campus safety."that this year’s May 10 commencement ceremony would go without its usual three to five-minute valedictorian speech in the name of “maintaining campus safety and security.
“The abolishment of the state of Israel, I’d like to clarify, is the abolishment of an apartheid system,” Tabassum told CNN’s Abby D. Phillip whenthat specific sentence. “It inherently is a system that subjugates Palestinians as dehumanized and it subjugates Palestinian life as not worth the same as other human life.” She added that simply answering yes or no would be “an injustice to the issue” and that the issues are all “worth discussion.
She further claimed that the university didn’t share its specific security concerns, nor did it offer her another method of participating in the ceremony.Unfortunately, over the past several days, discussion relating to the selection of our valedictorian has taken on an alarming tenor.
“While this is disappointing, tradition must give way to safety,” the statement continued. “The issue here is how best to maintain campus security and safety, period.”asked USC for comment, Joel Curran, the university’s senior vice president of communications, said the “final decision” was with President Carol Folt. Folt, the outlet noted, wasn’t available for an interview.
USC valedictorian Asna Tabassum joined me on NewsNight tonight after her school cancelled her graduation speech citing “threats.” What she planned to say and what she thinks really happened:“It’s no longer about free speech. It’s no longer about me. It is about when the university silences me, they are silencing all these people,” Tabassum told the. “When you silence us, you make us louder.
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