The two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author Colson Whitehead said Thursday he wouldn’t give a planned commencement speech at the University of Massachusetts Amherst later this month after school leadership’s decision to call the police to clear out an encampment of student protesters.
“I was looking forward to speaking next week at UMass Amherst. But calling the cops on peaceful protesters is a shameful act,” Whitehead said in a statement on the social network Bluesky. “I have to withdraw as your commencement speaker. I give all my best wishes and congratulations to the class of ’24 and pray for the safety of the Palestinian people, the return of the hostages, and an end to this terrible war.”
A spokesperson for the university, Ed Blaguszewski, said in a statement that they respected Whitehead’s decision. “The ceremony will proceed without a commencement speaker this year,” he said.
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On Tuesday night, state police arrested roughly 130 people on campus after the school said pro-Palestinian protesters had ignored orders to dismantle their encampment and disperse.
“You brutalized your own students last night for peacefully protesting,” student organizer Malia Cole said the next morning, addressing University Chancellor Javier Reyes, according to CBS Boston. “Their hands going numb from the cuffs being too tight, to rashes on their hands and stomachs from being thrown to the ground.”
Whitehead’s withdrawal as speaker follows a similar action by the novelist C Pam Zhang and academic Safiya Noble, who announced late last month that they would no longer be addressing graduating students at the University of Southern California.
“To speak at USC in this moment would betray not only our own values, but USC’s too,” they said. The pair condemned school leadership for refusing to meet “in good faith” with student protesters, instead calling in the Los Angeles Police Department to arrest 93 protesters.
