Oct 28, 2014 11:59 AM EDT By Russell Westerholm, UniversityHerald Reporter

Soon after the University of California (UC) - Berkeley announced Bill Maher as the school's commencement speaker, a petition surfaced requesting the invitation be rescinded.

According to the Daily Californian, the school revealed Maher as the Dec. graduation ceremony speaker last week. Khwaja Ahmed started the petition on Change.org last Thursday and it is on pace to reach its goal of 2,500 signatures sometime Tuesday afternoon.

Marium Navid, an Associated Students of the University of California (ASUC) senator, helped Ahmed co-author the petition, which has received the support of the Middle Eastern, Muslim and South Asian Coalition (MEMSA). The petition calls into question the comedian's controversial comments about Islam on a segment in his HBO show on Oct. 6.

"It's not an issue of freedom of speech, it's a matter of campus climate," Navid told the Daily Californian. "The First Amendment gives him the right to speak his mind, but it doesn't give him the right to speak at such an elevated platform as the commencement. That's a privilege his racist and bigoted remarks don't give him."

The Huffington Post noted that UC-Berkeley became known for a free speech movement in 1964. On his show, Maher said Islam is "the only religion that acts like the Mafia, that will f***ing kill you if you say the wrong thing, draw the wrong picture or write the wrong book."

"People say he has the right to freedom of speech, and I agree with that," Navid told the San Jose Mercury News. "The problem is that when you bring him to the university, you're pretty much putting him into a privileged position. You're raising his voice."

UC - Berkeley's University Relations department has final say in selecting a commencement speaker, the Daily Californian noted. Maher reportedly contacted the school in Aug. about giving the commencement address. Claire Chiara, president of the Berkeley College Republicans, told the newspaper she did not agree with Maher's views, but has not opposed his appointment.

Ahmed, on the other hand, believes what sets Maher apart from his contemporaries like Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert is that the HBO host calls his viewers to "rise up against religious people and religious institutions and take action."

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