Last week, while South Carolina State University students were protesting their administration’s plan to have Lieutenant Governor Pamela Evette speak at graduation, Evette held a news conference. She took reporters’ questions sitting in front of a banner declaring her next career aspiration: “Evette for Governor.”
One journalist asked, “If there is a risk of them pulling you out as the guest speaker, is there a chance that funding might be cut from the school?”
“I’m not a vindictive person,” she responded, adding that “I was asked as a guest to come and speak. I was happy to do that. I don’t believe they did that hoping that they would get more money, or not get money taken away.”
But since S.C. State canceled her graduation speech, Evette is now talking about taking the historically Black university’s money away. She’s amplified a letter from a small group of Republican lawmakers asking the House Ways and Means Committee chair to cut from next year’s budget the more than $35 million in state funding proposed for S.C. State.
On Friday, Evette reposted a local news story about the letter on X, adding, “What happened at S.C. State University this week is emblematic of what’s happening at institutions across our state and country, where the far left has silenced freedom of speech and pushed its radical, anti-American agenda for far too long.
“I applaud the members of the General Assembly who, like me, firmly believe that not one dime of taxpayer money should ever go to a school that discriminates against conservative views,” she wrote. “It certainly won’t happen when I’m governor.”
In another post, she wrote, “The protests and pressure to cancel me was solely about my political viewpoints. If colleges can’t defend free speech, then we can’t continue to fund them. Full stop. Merit over DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion].” And in a radio interview with News/Talk 989 WORD, she said, “When I’m governor … any state institution that gets money, taxpayer dollars, that pushes DEI, that pushes conservatives off their campus, I will fight to make sure their funding is taken away.”
The calls for defunding intensify the political fallout over S.C. State’s decision to invite a prominent conservative sitting politician and gubernatorial candidate to be its spring commencement speaker, only to backtrack last week after student protests. Commencement is set for this coming Friday.
Evette said the invitation to speak came in December, months after she announced her campaign. She used the protests against her in a recent campaign ad, repeating her controversial descriptions of protesters as “a mob” and “woke mobs.”
The university didn’t respond Monday to Inside Higher Ed’s requests for comment on the defunding threats. Local TV station WIS News 10 reported that, in a Thursday meeting of S.C. State’s Board of Trustees, board chair Douglas Gantt said he had told university president Alexander Conyers to invite Evette.
“Everything that was done was done because I gave the president and his staff directive to do it, and I’m here to stand for it, and I’m here to tell you that I won’t change,” Gantt said in WIS’s footage of the meeting. “I’m here to coerce the majority vote to get this institution everything that it needs and then some.” (WIS also reported that the board gave student protesters a standing ovation.)
Gantt’s comments at the meeting appear to suggest that he wanted to develop a better relationship with Republicans, who control the state’s purse strings.
The Post and Courier reported that Gantt spoke “about the need for the university to maintain strong relationships with the state’s Republican-dominated Legislature,” and said Conyers “did not deserve ‘ridicule’ … as he was doing the outreach he was asked to do.”
That “outreach” may have backfired. The Republican lawmakers’ letter calling to defund S.C. State said that “protesters cited [Evette’s] opposition to DEI practices, her pro-life record, and being a ‘Trump Conservative.’”
“It is shameful that a state institution, supported by taxpayer dollars, would capitulate and rescind an invitation to our sitting Lt. Governor—seemingly because some students do not agree with her political views,” the letter says. “Institutions of higher learning are intended to be a space where young adults are presented with a variety of viewpoints and ideas, not centers of indoctrination where conservative views are not welcome.”
The university didn’t say Evette was canceled due to the protests. Instead, Conyers said in a statement that it was “out of an abundance of caution for safety and with careful consideration”—though the university hasn’t since said whether there was a specific safety threat. The Republicans’ letter says that “if the Lt. Governor of South Carolina is unwelcome due to different political ideologies and an inability to keep her safe, it is time to defund and reevaluate.”
It’s unclear how much support the defunding push has; Republican governor Henry McMaster and the GOP leaders of the House, Senate and the House Ways and Means Committee didn’t respond to requests for their stances Monday. Nine Republicans out of the General Assembly’s 170 members signed the letter.
Rep. Gil Gatch, a signatory, told Inside Higher Ed he thinks he could have gotten more people to sign it if he had time.
“There’s a lot of conservative people’s dollars that go to that school,” Gatch said, adding that “you can’t have a dialogue in modern society when you’re canceling people who you disagree with.”
Evette’s spokesperson wrote to Inside Higher Ed, “Lt. Governor Evette’s position has not changed … Evette believes that education should be about free thinking, not pushing one party’s or one person’s agenda. As such, tax dollars should not go to any publicly-funded college or university that allows free speech to be silenced.”
In a statement Monday to Inside Higher Ed, Harry L. Williams, president and chief executive officer of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, which supports public HBCUs, said, “SC State is a vital economic engine for South Carolina, preparing its students for the workforce and serving the surrounding communities.” And he noted that Democrats and Republicans, including the Trump administration itself, have supported historically Black colleges and universities.
“The tremendous value of HBCUs as economic engines for their local economies and gateways to opportunity for their students have been supported by lawmakers from both sides of the aisle,” Williams said.
