Morehouse University remains free from protests in Gaza

As college protests over the Israeli bombing of Palestine have intensified at universities across the country, the response at HBCUs like Morehouse College has remained muted by comparison. During a recent visit to Atlanta, Vice President Kamala Harris asked the president of the university’s student body in regards to the temperature on the university and what topics students is likely to be interested in during President Joe Biden’s May 19 visit.

Anger is reported to be simmering beneath the surface, but has not yet translated into the encampments and other protests we now have witnessed at other universities, including Emory University in Atlanta. Morehouse has traditionally handled domestic affairs and, to a lesser extent, international affairs, in keeping with the newspaper.

David Thomas, president of Morehouse College, said he doesn’t imagine there’s a spot for him on the famed institution “cancel culture.”

As Thomas said on May 9, “This shouldn’t be a place that cancels people whether or not we agree with them. Whether people support this decision or not, we are committed to ensuring that it is implemented on our campus in a way that does not undermine the integrity or dignity of the school.”

Despite Thomas’ claims, several meetings with leaders took place it included a energetic exchange of wordsand college members said they’d boycott the commencement. A bunch of Morehouse alumni also wrote a letter critical of the institution’s history of “celebrating student activists long after they graduate.”

Morehouse is way more committed to tradition than most universities and even other HBCUs. Alumni, including Cedric Richmond, who graduated from Morehouse in 1995, led Biden’s office of public engagement and is now a senior adviser to the Democratic National Committee, expect the beginning of this term is not going to be met with protest. Richmond said, “Graduation at Morehouse College, at least that’s how I remember it, is a very celebratory event,” Richmond said. “Nearly 500 African-Americans walk across this stage whose parents and grandparents made sacrifices, and these students worked hard to get one to Morehouse and the opposite to graduate. This is an important day. And I’m just unsure that students or protesters will disrupt this solemn moment.

Benjamin Bayliss, a student at Morehouse, believes it’s time for the protests to maneuver to the Morehouse campus as he said, “I believe the protests actually need to return out because should you don’t see students speaking out for it, what they imagine in, then the change they advocate for won’t ever occur,” Bayliss said. “You really feel the weight of what King did and the fire of the torch that he lit that we have to continue.”

Meanwhile, Samuel Livingston, an associate professor of African studies at Morehouse, criticized Biden’s foreign policy on Gaza, contrasting his likable nature along with his concern about ethical issues related to Biden’s policies. “Joe Biden is probably a very nice person,” Livingston said, “but niceness is not the level of leadership we need. We need ethical leadership. “Continuing to support the aiding, inciting and taking of Palestinian land from the Palestinian people in the West Bank and Gaza Strip is unethical.”