Bethune-Cookman Graduates Boo Fascist Regime’s Education Secretary DeVos
May 10, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
Graduating students at Bethune-Cookman University in Florida, one of the country’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), righteously booed the Trump/Pence regime’s education secretary Betsy DeVos when she came to the podium to receive an honorary doctorate degree on Wednesday, May 10. Half of the 380 graduating students stood and turned their backs on DeVos when she began her commencement speech; and repeatedly shouted during the speech.
Petitions demanding that DeVos not be allowed to speak, signed by alumni and others, had been delivered to school administrators. Organizers reported that more than 50,000 people had signed the online petition; and the NAACP Florida State Conference called for the university president to resign. Last month, DeVos told the world that she considers this country’s Historically Black Colleges pioneers in the creation of “school choice”—completely covering up the reality that these schools are a product of the fight for education during the near century of segregation, when Black students were kept from access to higher education.
One of the students who kept their backs to DeVos for nearly the whole speech told the Washington Post: “She made racist comments about HBCUs, she doesn’t know anything about us, and she has the nerve to come down here and speak to us.”
The students at Bethune-Cookman University have joined the ranks of students across the country who have been protesting fascism.
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