Goddard’s Plainfield campus. Credit: Jeb Wallace-Brodeur

Twenty-three students graduate from Goddard College this Sunday. The school will hand out diplomas in a small, intimate ceremony — one of 20 held each year — at the Haybarn Theatre on its Plainfield campus. The graduates chose for a speaker a 1996 alumnus who has written six books and has been an outspoken advocate for racial justice and prisoners’ rights. 

Yesterday, Vermont cops requested that Goddard rescind its invitation. 

The commencement speaker, Mumia Abu-Jamal, is a convicted murderer who is sending his speech, prerecorded, from the Mahanoy State Correctional Institution in Frackville, Penn. That’s causing a stir — in Vermont and beyond. 

Jamal was originally sentenced to death for killing a police officer in Philadelphia in 1981. The sentence was later amended to life in prison without parole. While behind bars, Abu-Jamal, 60, who claims to be innocent, has been speaking and writing extensively about his experience on death row and the criminal justice system in general. While in prison, he earned his bachelor of arts from Goddard in 1996.

The officer’s widow has condemned Goddard’s decision. Fox News ran a story yesterday with the headline “Decision to let cop killer Abu-Jamal give commencement speech ‘despicable,’ widow says.” John Wetzel, the Pennsylvania corrections secretary, was quoted calling the decision “very troubling.”

Vermont cops are upset, too. Michael O’Neil, president of the 280-member Vermont Troopers’ Association, penned a strongly-worded letter requesting that the college’s interim president, Bob Kenny, rescind its offer. “Your invitation to this convicted murderer demonstrates an absolute disregard for the family of Danny Faulkner and the families of other police officers who have been killed while serving their communities,” O’Neil wrote on Tuesday, referring to the police officer Abu-Jamal is convicted of killing.

In a written statement, Kenny commended the students’ choice. “Choosing Mumia as their commencement speaker, to me, shows how this newest group of Goddard graduates expresses their freedom to engage and think radically and critically in a world that often sets up barriers to do just that.”

Goddard isn’t the first college to ask Jamal to speak at graduation — Evergreen State College in Washington invited him in 1999, which created a similar backlash, and Antioch College in Ohio invited him the following year. 

Alicia Freese was a Seven Days staff writer from 2014 through 2018.

15 replies on “Goddard’s Commencement Speaker Is Controversial Mumia Abu-Jamal”

  1. Congratulations to Goddard College, an institution of thoughtful and critical education, for doing something radical and unprecedented as respecting the wishes of its students, and for keeping to its tradition of unconventional education where students are NOT taught to be sheep like the rest of society who fail to question authority and give them a blank check to do so many criminal things in the name of justice!

    Congrats to the graduating class, and may Goddard and its students always continue to speak their truth to power! In this time post -Ferguson a time of ongoing criminality by the police everywhere in this country who continue to devalue African American lives by beating and shooting to kill, because of their underlying racism that shows its ugly face under pressure, that no white person has to live through because of their white skin privilege…but we are getting tired of this two tiered system, and its time to end this vicious cycle…racial profiling must end, as must fearing black and brown people, and they must be seen as humans too, until then the civil rights, equality and democracy that this country upholds is a sham. Ya Basta! Enough is Enough…here’s a step in the direction of social change, a tradition that Vermont should continue to venerate and celebrate, not fall victim to the same old racist and authoritarian rhetoric of a corrupt justice system. Be proud Vermont, when have you ever not done the correct thing? “Never doubt that a small group of concerned citizens can change the world, indeed it’s the only thing that ever has”–Margaret Mead.

  2. Why is he serving a life sentence if he is not guilty? I’m not for crime-black or white. When does the killing end if we don’t uphold the law? Who kills who next? Is that the freedom you want to enjoy? Why glorify evil?

  4. I see 7 Days has simply followed the same path as WCAX with this article. I used to ignore the idea that Vermont has an insidious “racism” issue with blacks and other minorities. I say incidious, because Vermont speaks all-nice and left-wingy about life, but notoriously turns nasty, without looking up the facts, when it comes to these types of stories. Very sad, this is.

    Interesting it is that WCAX (in Vermont) would immediately paste Mumia Abu Jamal as a `cop killer,` instead of an `accused`cop-killer, without bothering to actually research several sources about his case and the unjustified and brutal (and consistent) actions of the Philadelphia Police department’s treatment toward black Americans, not just in the 1960s, but straight through the 1990s and early 2000s. However, I live in America. This does not surprise me.

    Any other person would be marked as “accused cop-killer.” No one is justifying murder; yet, a cabie comes across the scene of his own brother being beaten by a cop (yes, allegedly–though extraordinarily common and considered the cultural norm for white cops to act toward blacks in that time and more recent times), and he cannot defend his family? He is shot and the cop is shot. Where those shots came from was never proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. Numerous witnesses (themselves black) stated that another black man shot both people (but let’s be fair: some folks think we all look the same, and are all guilty). Several witnesses were taken in by the cops and seriously intimidated into signing retractions. Oh no. This does not get out. Mumia’s black. He must have killed the cop. The cop was white; he must have been all good, and not doing the very thing the Philadelphia Police department was consistently accused of in that time period–relentlessly abusing, harassing and beating black and Hispanic citizens. Where the bullets came from was simply never clear. Yet, Jamal is black. He must be guilty.

    This may not be “nice” and “politically correct.” I am actually in support of most of what law enforcement stands for; tampering with evidence and false accusations is not any of them, though. World outrage over this did not happen in a vacuum. I am not in favor of labeling someone for any kind of crime, much less murder, without knowing the deepest, most hidden particulars of the case. Though I do love WCAX reporting most of the time, I am shaken by your lack of fairness with this subject. I simply am; but I am black, so who cares, right? There really aren’t enough of us around for my voice to matter.

    Most of you will simply say that I am just “playing the race card,” a quick way for certain folks to write this off. I have to accept that I live in a world where “shooting an unarmed black man” is a running sport with police and other certain citizens. I have to be careful, and just accept that this is the way it has always been in America. I support Goddard College`s students in their decision. They have the First Amendment right and the Liberty to hear the voices chosen by their students. We do not have to all agree; but the decision was not made in a vacuum, once again. It will be interesting to see if I am taken out of context. Be Well and Go Carefully.

    http://www.bostonreview.net/us/loren-goldner-campaign-save-mumia-abu-jamal
    The Campaign to Save Mumia Abu-Jamal | Boston Review
    Loren GoldnerFebruary 01, 1999 Loren GoldnerUnless he is saved in the coming weeks and months by an international campaign of protest, or by an unlikely Supreme Court decision in his favor,…
    bostonreview.net

  5. Mumia will deliver a powerful message as he has done many,many times before. He should be a free man and I am proud to be a Vermonter tonight as I hear this news. Kudos to Goddard and to the graduates for believing in themselves and in Mumia. Thousands and thousands of people sit behind bars at this very moment in American prisons who should be FREE. This is a fact. Our legal system had,has and will continue to have in perfections. We are humans and mistakes will be made. Putting Mumia behind bars was one of those mistakes our legal system made. Proud of you tonight Goddard College!!

  8. Commend the courage of theses students and the cooperation of the university in granting them their desire!
    Curls to all; I am sure Mumia will deliver an impactful engaging message, B Great!

  9. “How can he speak if he’s in prison???”

    Via prerecorded video.

    As it says in the story “The commencement speaker, Mumia Abu-Jamal, is a convicted murderer who is sending his speech, prerecorded, from the Mahanoy State Correctional Institution in Frackville, Penn. “

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