Biden tells pro-Gaza student protesters their ‘voices should be heard’ during Morehouse commencement speech

Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox

Get our free Inside Washington email

President Joe Biden called for an “immediate ceasefire” and acknowledged protesters who have denounced the Israeli siege as a genocide as he spoke on Sunday at one of the nation’s oldest historically Black colleges, Morehouse.

The president told Morehouse College’s graduating class of seniors that the voices of protesters “should be heard” even as the school was forced to threaten students with the cancellation of commencement ceremonies if disruptions occurred.

“I support peaceful, non-violent protest,” Biden told the class. “Your voices should be heard. And I promise you, I hear them.”

“What’s happening in Gaza and Israel is heartbreaking,” said the president. “Innocent Palestinians caught in the middle of this, men, women and children killed or displaced, in desperate need of food and water.”

“It’s a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. That’s why I’ve called for an immediate ceasefire, to stop the fighting,” he added. “Bring the hostages home.”

Biden’s speech was punctuated by cheers at a few points, including after he called for a ceasefire in the fighting between Israel and Hamas. His remarks were not interrupted, as many of his aides had reportedly feared, by protesters who were warned by Morehouse’s administration against disrupting the event. One faculty member was seen turning her back to him and raising a fist, while standing in silent protest.

Some graduates and faculty instead told local media outlets that they opposed the college’s dean bestowing an honorary degree on the president as the fighting continues with US support. More than 35,000 Palestinians are presumed to have been killed by Israeli strikes since the fighting began last October. Others protested outside of the event itself.

“It is a shame to give an honorary degree to someone who is supporting financially, publicly genocide in Gaza,” professor Cynthia Hewitt told WSB-TV in Atlanta.

The address to Morehouse graduates served a dual purpose for the president — it allowed him to address one of his key constituencies, younger Black Americans, in a state where he is set to have a major showdown with Donald Trump in November: Georgia.

The Southern state will be one of several major battlegrounds this election cycle after Biden won it in 2020. One of several states where the former president sought to overturn the results of the election without real proof of fraud or wrongdoing, Georgia is also preparing for one of the ex-president’s three upcoming criminal trials, with one already underway in New York.

The incumbent president also addressed his predecessor’s allegedly criminal attempts to cling to power on Sunday as he addressed graduates and faculty, many of whom his party will be seeking to turn out to the polls later this year.

And he decried efforts by conservatives around the country to remove literature from libraries and schools that contains references to LGBT Americans and lifestyles: “I never thought I’d be president at a time when there’s a national movement to ban books.”

The speech echoed many themes of his 2024 re-election campaign efforts, though it also delved deeply into themes of faith and family as he spoke about the deaths of his wife and daughter in a car crash.

Biden’s remarks came just days after his campaign accepted offers for two debated with Donald Trump, bypassing the Comission on Presidential Debates and dealing directly with cable networks.