"This campaign to prevent me from addressing my peers at commencement has evidently accomplished its goal: today, USC administrators informed me that the university will no longer allow me to speak at commencement due to supposed security concerns," she wrote.

"I am both shocked by this decision and profoundly disappointed that the university is succumbing to a campaign of hate meant to silence my voice. I am not surprised by those who attempt to propagate hatred. I am surprised that my own university—my home for four years—has abandoned me."

In an interview, Guzman said the university has been "in close contact with the student" and would "provide her support." He added that "we weren't seeking her opinion" on the ban.

"This is a security decision," he said. "This is not about the identity of the speaker, it's not about the things the valedictorian has said in the past. We have to put as our top priority ensuring that the campus and community is safe."

Another campus official who was part of the decision, Erroll Southers, said threats came in via email, phone calls and letters. Southers is USC's associate senior vice president for safety and risk assurance.

Individuals "say they will come to campus as early as this week," Southers said. He did not elaborate.

Pro-Palestinian groups, including the Los Angeles chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, have called for USC to reinvite Tabassum to speak.

"USC cannot hide its cowardly decision behind a disingenuous concern for 'security,'" CAIR-LA Executive Director Hussam Ayloush said in a statement.

In another statement, the USC Palestine Justice Faculty Group said it "unequivocally rejects" Tabassum being uninvited.

"The provost's action is another example of USC's egregious pattern of supporting anti-Palestinian and anti-Muslim racism," the group said.

Times staff writers Jenna Peterson and Angie Orellana Hernandez contributed to this report.

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