House Republicans Introduce Bill to Defund HBCU That Canceled Republican Commencement Speaker

Nine members of the South Carolina House of Representatives sent a letter on April 30, 2026, to House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bruce Bannister demanding that South Carolina State University receive zero funding in the next version of the state budget [1]. The demand came one day after SC State President Alexander Conyers announced the university would "move in a different direction" for its May 8 spring commencement, rescinding its invitation to Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette following student protests and what the school described as safety concerns [2].

The letter, signed by Representatives Gil Gatch, Thomas Beach, Jackie Terribile, Sarita Edgerton, Josiah Magnuson, John McCravy, Melissa Oremus, and Cally Forrest Jr., stated: "There is no reason why state tax dollars should continue to fund a state institution where not all South Carolinians are welcome" [1]. It concluded: "If the Lt. Gov. of South Carolina is unwelcome due to different political ideologies and an inability to keep her safe, it is time to defund and reevaluate" [3].

SC State is South Carolina's only publicly funded, four-year historically Black college or university. It enrolls roughly 2,950 undergraduates, 92% of whom are Black, and 77% of whom receive federal Pell Grants — a marker of low-income status [4][5].

How the Commencement Controversy Unfolded

SC State's Board of Trustees Chairman Douglas Gantt disclosed at an April 30 board meeting that he personally guided the decision to invite Evette [6]. The university's stated rationale centered on her business background: before becoming lieutenant governor in 2019, Evette founded and led Quality Business Solutions, a Greenville County human resources firm that grew into a billion-dollar enterprise [2].

The invitation was extended in December 2025 [7]. When news of Evette's selection became public in late April, students organized rapidly. A petition opposing her appearance collected more than 20,000 signatures [2]. Students staged marches and a sit-in on the Orangeburg campus, chanting "Hey, hey! Ho! Ho! Pamela Evette gots to go!" [7]. Their objections centered on Evette's opposition to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, her anti-abortion stance, and her vocal support for President Donald Trump [2][8].

On April 29, Evette held a virtual press conference in which she characterized the demonstrators as a "woke mob" [9]. She doubled down on that description the following day, telling reporters: "Let's just start calling things for what they are. That is what it was" [9]. She refused to apologize, adding: "I saw the pictures...It was a mob of people. We see that happening all over our country" [9].

She also framed her positions as unchanged since the invitation was issued: "I was pro-Trump in December. I was anti-DEI in December. And I was pro-life in December. Nothing has changed" [9]. She questioned why the university had invited her if it disagreed with these positions.

Hours after Evette's initial press conference, President Conyers announced the cancellation, citing "an abundance of caution for safety" [2]. Evette responded by tying the incident to broader conservative education policy: "The fact that a speech had to be canceled for credible safety threats is exactly why we cannot give up the fight to end indoctrination and DEI on campuses once and for all" [7].

The University's Response and the Board Meeting

At the April 30 Board of Trustees meeting — the first public session since the cancellation — student leaders received a standing ovation [6]. The university defended student expression, stating that students had "exercised their rights in a way that reflected civic engagement and respectful discourse" [10].

Chairman Gantt acknowledged the political dynamics, arguing for the need to "work across political, racial and gender lines for the betterment of SC State" [6]. He also took blame off President Conyers, saying the president's role was "walking into rooms to help us get funding. Not just for the kids now, but for the kids who are to come later" [6] — a statement that took on added weight given the defunding letter that arrived the same day.

Who Would Be Harmed: The Student Body at Risk

SC State serves a predominantly low-income, first-generation student population. Seventy-seven percent of its undergraduates receive Pell Grants, a federal need-based aid program that serves students from families typically earning under $60,000 a year [4]. About 75% of students are in-state residents, and the university's tuition for South Carolina residents runs approximately $4,964 per year — among the most affordable four-year options in the state [11].

Source: College Factual / NCES

Data as of Jan 1, 2025CSV

If state funding were eliminated, the university's ability to cover operational costs, maintain financial aid matching programs, fund campus security, and retain faculty would be directly threatened. For students already on the financial margins, any disruption to institutional stability could mean the difference between completing a degree and dropping out.

A Funding History Already Marked by Inequity

The push to defund SC State carries additional historical weight. In September 2023, U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona and Secretary of Agriculture Thomas Vilsack sent a letter to Governor Henry McMaster informing him that the federal government had determined South Carolina had shortchanged SC State by nearly $470 million over the previous three decades [12]. As an 1890 land-grant university under the Second Morrill Act, SC State is legally entitled to funding equitable with Clemson University, the state's original 1862 land-grant institution. That parity, federal officials said, "has not happened for at least the last three decades" [12].

Source: U.S. Dept. of Education / USDA (2023)

Data as of Sep 27, 2023CSV

South Carolina was one of 16 states whose governors received similar letters. Nationally, the federal government calculated that land-grant HBCUs had been shortchanged by more than $12 billion during the same period [12]. Against this backdrop, a proposal to strip all remaining state funding from an institution already identified as chronically underfunded carries implications beyond the immediate political dispute.

The Political Context: A Governor's Race and a Freedom Caucus

Evette is running in a crowded Republican primary for governor of South Carolina [13]. Several of her gubernatorial rivals have publicly questioned whether the commencement controversy was politically manufactured.

Republican Attorney General Alan Wilson's campaign accused Evette of inconsistency, noting that her former HR firm, Quality Business Solutions, had previously marketed diversity training, inclusion strategies, and cultural competence initiatives to businesses [13]. Wilson's team stated: "Now that she's fourth place in the polls, she's desperate to boost her numbers and change the conversation" [13].

Democratic candidate Mullins McLeod said: "Speaking the truth in a corrupt system takes courage, leadership and vision: three things the Lieutenant Governor proved she knows nothing about" [13]. Democratic State Representative Jermaine Johnson criticized Evette for escalating the situation: "She decided to actually double down...she decided to name call, she called them a woke mob, she called them radical leftists, and she said she's gonna get rid of DEI on all campuses" [13].

The nine lawmakers who signed the defunding letter are affiliated with the South Carolina House Freedom Caucus [3], a faction that has previously clashed with the state's Republican establishment on budget issues. In March 2025, a GOP legislative leader publicly called the Freedom Caucus's budget-cutting efforts "disingenuous" [14]. The caucus had also previously called for defunding Clemson University and ending tenure statewide, suggesting the SC State letter fits a broader pattern rather than a singular reaction [15].

Legal and Constitutional Questions

The question of whether legislatures can condition public university funding on speaker access policies has been tested at the federal level, though no such bill has become law. The Campus Free Speech Restoration Act has been introduced in every Congress since the 116th (2019–2020), most recently as H.R. 6663 in the current 119th Congress [16][17]. The bill would strip federal funds from public institutions that the Department of Education determines have infringed on students' expressive rights. It has never advanced past committee.

The constitutional framework for such legislation rests on the spending power doctrine articulated in South Dakota v. Dole (1987), in which the Supreme Court upheld Congress's authority to condition federal highway funds on states adopting a minimum drinking age of 21 [18]. Under Dole, conditions on federal spending must be unambiguous, related to the federal interest in the program, and not independently unconstitutional. Critically, the Court held that the spending power "may not be used to induce the States to engage in activities that would themselves be unconstitutional" [18].

Scholars on both sides of the debate draw on this framework. Proponents of funding conditions argue that ensuring open speaker access at public institutions advances the federal interest in free expression — and that the government is under no obligation to subsidize viewpoint discrimination. Opponents counter that stripping funding from a university because it made a personnel decision about a single commencement speaker crosses the line from legitimate condition-setting into coercion, particularly when the institution cited safety concerns as its justification.

At the state level, the SC lawmakers' letter does not invoke any formal legislative mechanism or cite a specific statute. It is a request to the Ways and Means chairman to zero out SC State's budget line — an act of political pressure rather than a completed legislative process.

Precedent and the Risk of a Broader Weapon

No "defund over campus speech" bill has resulted in actual funding cuts at the federal or state level in the United States [16]. Bills conditioning university funding on speech policies have been introduced repeatedly since 2015, particularly following campus controversies involving conservative speakers. At the state level, the Goldwater Institute drafted model legislation in 2017 that several states considered, though most versions that passed focused on disciplinary frameworks for students who disrupt speakers rather than on stripping institutional funding [19].

The mechanism proposed in the SC letter — eliminating an institution's entire state appropriation in retaliation for a speaker decision — is unusually blunt. If established as precedent, it could theoretically be applied by any legislative majority to punish any university for hosting or declining any speaker. Progressive lawmakers in other states could use the same logic to target universities that invite anti-abortion speakers, military recruiters, or figures associated with policies they oppose. No progressive legislators have publicly raised this specific concern in response to the SC State letter, but the structural vulnerability is symmetrical.

Evette's Broader Claims and the HBCU Record

During her press conference, Evette asserted that Republicans have "done more for historically black colleges and universities" than others, citing campus construction projects at SC State funded by the Republican-dominated General Assembly [9]. She also claimed that Trump has "done more for HBCUs" than any president [20].

These claims exist alongside the documented $470 million funding shortfall and ongoing tensions between HBCUs and state legislatures over appropriations equity. As of May 1, 2026, neither the United Negro College Fund (UNCF) nor the Thurgood Marshall College Fund — which counts SC State as a member institution — has issued a public statement specifically addressing the defunding threat. The absence of a response from major HBCU advocacy organizations may reflect the rapid pace of events, though it leaves a gap in the public discourse about what the threat means for all 101 HBCUs' institutional autonomy.

What Happens Next

The defunding letter is a demand, not legislation. Whether SC State's appropriation is actually reduced depends on the Ways and Means Committee's response and the broader legislative dynamics of the state budget process. SC State's spring commencement is scheduled for May 8, and the university has not announced a replacement speaker.

The nine signatories represent a minority within the 124-member South Carolina House, and the letter has already drawn criticism from across the political spectrum — including from within the Republican Party. But the threat itself has already achieved one outcome: it has placed a financially vulnerable institution at the center of a national debate over the limits of political retaliation against universities, the boundaries of student protest, and the question of who gets to decide what a commencement ceremony means.