A woman has been criticized by her former college after she dramatically disrupted her commencement ceremony. A spokesman for LaGuardia Community College explained to reporters that each graduate is asked to say their name into the microphone one-by-one as part of the ceremony. A volunteer holds the microphone for each student to speak into. One graduate, however, did not appreciate this rule and decided to break it.
Video footage shows Kadia Iman, an OnlyFans model, snatching the microphone from the volunteer’s hand, despite having already received her diploma. The older woman struggles to retain her grip on the microphone, but Iman manages to grab it from her before addressing the crowd briefly. She tells the crowd that she demands to have “her moment” and accuses the volunteer of not letting her have it, before giving her name to the shocked crowd and throwing the microphone to the ground.
Iman took to social media website TikTok to give her version of events to her 18,000 followers, in which she claimed to be acting on behalf of all the women “who look like [her]”, stating that the white volunteer was pulling the microphone too quickly away from some black students. Iman claimed to have no regrets for her behavior, adding that she can never be in the wrong as a “black woman in America”.
While she was applauded by some of her online followers, her outburst has been heavily criticized by many others. LaGuardia Community College called her actions “unacceptable”, and some people have posited that Iman was simply acting out because she was upset to have had nobody turn up to her ceremony.
Other students in attendance have created their own online videos to add their views, including black graduate and TikTok user using the online name @glamstonerboutique, who stated that Iman was not racially discriminated against, and that the ceremony went very well apart from Iman’s disruption. Fellow TikTok user and black graduate of the college known online as @queldinero810 added that she also did not think black graduates were discriminated against. She added that she did not believe Iman would have behaved as she did had the volunteer not been a white woman.
