Obama-era Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson has reportedly withdrawn as commencement speaker for the University of Southern California law school amid a furor over his selection.
Gould School of Law dean Andrew Guzman said Johnson cancelled after “some faculty and students…raised concerns about the immigration policies of the Obama administration,” Above The Law has reported.
“Secretary Johnson shared with me that he believes that graduations should be free of tension and political controversy and for this reason has decided not to speak,” Guzman wrote, the law school-focused outlet reported.
The controversy erupted after two Latino professors, Daria Roithmayr and David Cruz, complained about Johnson as a speaker choice.
“Johnson has repeatedly failed to respect legal and moral limits on the use of government-sponsored coercive force, particularly against children, and has demonstrated a morally repugnant willingness to use those who are most vulnerable among us as means to an end,” the pair wrote in a letter posted by the outlet.
In an April 2 interview with National Public Radio, Johnson said the Obama administration had taken steps to expand family detention of illegal immigrant families following a 2014 surge of illegal immigrants.
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