LOS ANGELES.–South Asian 21-year-old Muslim student Asna Tabassum, biomedical engineering major, was cancelled by USC as its valedictorian speaker because she planned to use her speech to advocate for the Palestinian cause at the May 10 USC graduation. How Tabassum got her speech approved in the first place is anyone’s guess. Most likely she left out her advocacy found her in Facebook and Istagram pages advocating for “Free Palestine” or, like the terrorist group Hamas, a single Palestinian state. Like most 21-year-olds, Tabassum has her passions but ignores how deeply offensive her words would be to a large majority of USC graduates and their families who support Israel or, more importantly, are of Jewish background. Cancelling Tabassum’s speech could have been handled differently, if USC had they reviewed a copy of her speech and vetoed the content as incendiary.
Expecting 65,000 to attend the May 10 graduation, USC cancelled Tabassum’s speech, drawing widespread campus protests, including condemnations by the Council on Islamic Relations. Political organizations have no say on university campuses or other private institutions when it comes to advocating content of speeches, knowing there are plenty of legitimate news outlets or forums for political invectives. Tabassum has demonstrated the kind of immaturity in terms to selecting inappropriate content for her valedictorian speech, not knowing, or perhaps caring, how many people she’d offend at the ceremony. USC has every right to censor her speech designed to give the 21-year-old a kind to Greta Thunberg status, the former teenage environmental advocate pushing her cause of reducing fossil fuels to improve global warming and climate change.
No doubt Tabassum feels passionately about the Palestinian cause but the issues are far too complicated for a 21-year-old to deal with in a commencement speech. However a biomedical major got consumed by politics is unknown but clearly she planned to use her valedictorian speech to advocate for the Palestine liberation, but, more importantly, to end the seven-month-old war in the Gaza Strip causing so much hardship for the civilian population. But Tabussum is too naïve to know about Hamas, the terror group that has plundered the Gaza Strip for the last 17 years, stealing billions of dollars from donors’ cash to wage war against Israel with the intent of destroying the Jewish State. Hamas was founded by Sheikh Ahmed Nassin in 1987 for one purpose under one charter: To destroy the Jewish State and return control of the Holy land to Muslims.
When USC officials checked Asna’s Facebook and Instagram posts they found ample evidence of her support for the Hamas cause for the slogan, “from the river to the sea,” the goal of pushing Israel into the Mediterranean Sea. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) used that exact phrase in blasting Israel for its war with Hamas, until her Democrat colleagues lambasted her for using anti-Semitic tropes. Omar said the expression “from the river to the sea,” was a peaceful expression calling for human rights for all. When it comes to Tabassum, she’s swept up a fashionable cause for American Muslims as expressed through the Council for Islamic Relations, to take up the Palestinian cause. Protests against the slaughter of innocents in the Gaza Strip are spread around college campuses, losing the message to anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli slurs, rather than legitimate antiwar protests.
USC officials could have handled things differently had the known or received a copy of Tabassum’s speech so they could tell her to change the subject or forfeit her honor of delivering a valedictorian speech. Where did the 21-tyear-old biomedical engineering major think she had a right to deliver a highly controversial speech advocating for Palestine liberation at a USC graduation ceremony? “Given the highly publicized circumstances surrounding our main stage commencement program, university leadership has decided it is best to release our outside speakers and honorees from attending this year’s ceremony,” USC said. But why should everyone be punished because USC didn’t properly vet Tabassum’s speech to determine its was inappropriate for a general graduation ceremony? USC should have approved other speeches appropriate and compatible for graduation.
Tabassum doesn’t know how she’s been used as a pawn by the Council of Islamic Relations, seeking to hijack the USC graduation to advocate for the Palestinian cause founded in 1964 by Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization [PLO]. Tabassum doesn’t know the history, nor does she understand the U.S. anti-terrorism policy since Sept. 11. “Although this should have been a time of celebration for my family, friends, professors and classmates, anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian voice have subjected me to a campaign of racist hatred because of my uncompromising belief in human rights for all,” Tabassum said. Cancelling her speech had nothing to with Islamic hatred, it had to do with its incendiary content, inappropriate for a USC graduation. If Sept. 11 taught anything, it’s how easily zealous youth can be swept up in various political causes, this time Palestine liberation.
About the Author
John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.
