Clinton alum Tucker in spotlight at S.C. State commencement

Clinton native and Clinton High alum Zaria Tucker called the past couple of weeks “surreal” as she found herself at the center of a commencement controversy at S.C. State where she is completing her undergraduate work.

Tucker, who is expected to graduate from S.C. State in December with a degree in psychology, was asked to speak at the Historically Black University’s commencement exercises Friday as the outgoing president of the Student Government Association. Tucker and alum Yolanda Williams addressed the school’s largest graduating class in at least 12 years with 375 members.

But the controversy was the initial selection of South Carolina Lt. Gov. and Republican gubernatorial candidate Pamela Evette as the keynote speaker, leading to protests from from the members of the graduating class and the school, including Tucker.

After Evette was disinvited to speak, that put Tucker front and center, which she said is not somewhere she necessarily wanted to be.

“I really don’t like a lot of attention, so it was a lot to handle at that moment because I wasn’t used to so much attention, even though I’ve been SGA president at my university for a year now,” Tucker said. “But that was something really major. A lot has transpired the last two weeks.”

When it became known that Evette was to deliver the address to graduates, students said they did not feel that the conservative Evette represented their “voices, values, and lived experiences,” which Tucker wrote in a social media post.

Commencement was also set for about a month prior to the GOP Primary, for which Evette has a narrow lead over several gubernatorial hopefuls, including Attorney General Alan Wilson and Rep. Nancy Mace.

Tucker said students did not want a campaign speech at their graduation, which Evette said was not planned.

“It was really surreal just due to the fact that it became bigger than what we could have imagined,” she said. “We didn’t want to make it about politics, and it became a whole movement. It was kind of surreal, but we were overjoyed with the outcome.”

Evette said in reports that the speech was not planned to be political in nature, but went on the offensive after the backlash, calling the students “woke mobs.” Some state legislators have also discussed cutting funding at the university.

S.C. State President Alexander Conyers said in a statement that Tucker and Williams brought perspectives that would be meaningful to this year’s graduating class.

“Commencement is a moment to recognize our students’ hard work and readiness for what comes next,” Conyers said in the statement.

Tucker, who said faculty at the Orangeburg university have asked her to reconsider her career goals and move toward political science or public policy, said she believes S.C. State students will have a voice going forward on such matters and is happy their voices were heard by the administration. She said she wanted to reflect that those voices matter in her speech.

“(I wanted to say) that we are educated black students who got a degree from a university that stands on what they believe in,” she said. “We didn’t want it about politics. We didn’t want (Evette) to come talk about her campaign for governor. We wanted to celebrate graduating from a historically black institution.”