This archive report was first published on 8 June 2020.
Published on June 8, 2020, President Trump's eldest daughter, Ivanka Trump, faced backlash after her commencement speech was pulled from a virtual ceremony at Wichita State University Tech.
The decision to cancel the airing of Ms. Trump's prerecorded speech was made by officials at Wichita State University Tech after students and faculty members condemned the Trump administration's handling of protests calling for justice for George Floyd, a black man who was killed in Minneapolis after a white police officer knelt on his neck.
Ms. Trump responded to the college's decision by releasing the video anyway, prompting further backlash.
“Our nation's campuses should be bastions of free speech. Cancel culture and viewpoint discrimination are antithetical to academia,” Ms. Trump wrote on Twitter, referring to the idea of snubbing a person or an institution over actions or remarks that are considered objectionable.
Ms. Trump's comments on cancel culture were seized upon by critics who condemned her place as a senior adviser in the administration. Mr. Trump's response to the protests so far has been to threaten military force and call protesters “terrorists.”
By Sunday, as snippets of Ms. Trump's speech circulated on social media, the hashtag #ByeIvanka trended on Twitter.
