Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) will deliver the commencement address at the Citadel nearly 25 years after she became the first female cadet to graduate from the institution.
Mace’s commencement address will cap off the college’s celebrations of “25 years of female cadet graduates,” the school said. Approximately 13% of the Citadel’s Corps of Cadets are women, with the university stating that the number of female cadets continues to grow.
The South Carolina congresswoman will deliver the commencement address for the 2024 Corps of Cadets at 9 a.m. on Saturday. She became part of the Citadel as a Band Company member in 1996, graduating three years later with a degree in business administration and “setting an example for the hundreds of female cadets who would earn their own Citadel diplomas in the following years,” per the university.
Mace also authored In the Company of Men: A Woman at The Citadel, a 2001 book that was published by Simon & Schuster. Her father, Brig. Gen. James E. Mace, who was part of the class of 1963, is the most decorated living graduate of The Citadel, per the university.
While several colleges are facing unrest from pro-Palestinian protests that have led some to cancel their commencement ceremonies, there have been no reports of The Citadel experiencing any related turmoil on campus, and it will proceed with its commencement as planned.
The University of Southern California canceled its commencement ceremony following the arrest of nearly 100 people during a pro-Palestinian protest on campus. The university said that due to putting new safety measures in place in response to the demonstrations, the ceremony, which traditionally brings around 65,000 students and guests to the campus, would not take place.
The university canceled Asna Tabassum’s valedictorian speech the week before, citing a potential campus safety risk if she spoke. Pro-Israel USC student groups had flagged Tabassum, accusing her views of being antisemitic.
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Like many lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, Mace has condemned the pro-Palestinian protests as being “not what America stands for” and dared demonstrators to go to Gaza.
“What I would like to see, if these terrorist-loving kids and students hate our country so much, they should take their terrorist flags, they should go to Gaza in their crop tops and nose rings and see how long they would last, because Hamas would chop off their heads, throw them off the roof of a building, before they ever had the chance to tell them their pronouns,” the congresswoman said on Fox & Friends First.
