Biden's Morehouse graduation invitation is sparking backlash, complicating election-year appearance

President Joe Biden will be the commencement speaker at Morehouse College in Georgia, giving the Democrat a key spotlight on one of the nation’s preeminent historically Black campuses but potentially exposing him to uncomfortable protests as he seeks reelection against former President Donald Trump.

The White House confirmed Tuesday that Biden would speak May 19 at the alma mater of civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr., and then address the graduating class at the United States Military Academy at West Point on May 25.

The Morehouse announcement has drawn some backlash among the school's faculty and supporters who are critical of Biden's handling of the Israel-Hamas war. That could put the White House and Biden's reelection campaign in a difficult position as the president works to shore up the racially diverse coalition that propelled him to the Oval Office.

By Tuesday afternoon some Morehouse alumni were circulating an online letter that condemns the administration's invitation to Biden and seeking signatures to pressure Morehouse President David Thomas to rescind it.

The letter, obtained by The Associated Press, claimed Biden's approach to Israel effectively supports genocide in Gaza and runs counter to the pacifism that King expressed with his opposition to the Vietnam War.

“In inviting President Biden to campus, the college affirms a cruel standard that complicity in genocide merits no sanction from the institution that produced one of the towering advocates for nonviolence of the twentieth century,” the letter states, emphasizing King's stance that “war is a hell that diminishes” humanity as a whole. “If the college cannot affirm this noble tradition of justice by rescinding its invitation to President