Marcia Fudge Withdraws as Shaker Heights Commencement Speaker

Marcia Fudge speaking in 2023 Credit: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development

Former HUD Secretary and United States Congresswoman Marcia Fudge on Friday afternoon notified the Shaker Height school district that she would withdraw as speaker for the high school’s commencement on June 5.

The Shakerite, the school’s student-run newspaper, first reported the news.

While district officials had lauded the chance to finally welcome the Northeast Ohio political legend to a graduation ceremony after years of her schedule making such an arrangement impossible, students in recent weeks had voiced displeasure and started a petition opposing the move due to Fudge’s previous support for sentencing leniency on behalf of Lance Mason in a 2014 domestic violence conviction involving his ex-wife Aisha Fraser.

Mason, the former Cuyahoga County Common Pleas judge, pleaded guilty to battering Fraser, a beloved sixth grade teacher in Shaker. Records show he punched her more than 20 times and slammed her head into the console of a car in front of the couple’s children.

In her letter to a judge, Fudge wrote that he was a “good man who made a very bad mistake and “Lance accepts full responsibility for his actions and has assured me that something like this will never happen again.

A few years later, Mason brutally murdered Fraser, stabbing her as she dropped the children off at a family member’s house.

While Fudge condemned the murder — “My support of Lance Mason was based on the person I knew for almost 30 years,” she said in a statement in 2018. “The person who committed these crimes is not the Lance Mason familiar to me. They were horrific crimes, and I condemn them” — students, Fraser’s former colleagues and Shaker families felt that inviting someone who vouched for Mason to speak to Fraser’s former students was insensitive.

The choice “does not align with the values we uphold in Shaker Heights, OH. As a community, we believe in promoting safety and justice,” the petition read.

“I simply think that this district cannot forgive nor forget what she’s done,” Shaker senior Lilith Schmidt told The Shakerite, “and her accomplishments do not outweigh her being complicit.”

An email sent to parents and teachers on Friday afternoon said the district is evaluating the current commencement program.

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