Crimea and Putinishment (politics)

by **pacino** » Tue May 13, 2014 12:49:04

jerseyhoya wrote:IMF director Lagarde withdraws from Smith commencement - The tolerant, open minded left on campus grabs another scalp

ok

edit

by **jerseyhoya** » Tue May 13, 2014 12:58:19

pacino did that just to bottom page my Very Important Post

by **td11** » Tue May 13, 2014 13:20:30

seems kind of like an overreaction Lagarde's part to withdraw based on a petition that had 477 signatures on it

by **TenuredVulture** » Tue May 13, 2014 13:21:25

That's like half of Smith's undergrads.

by **Houshphandzadeh** » Tue May 13, 2014 13:22:18

if there was a captcha on there, it would have had ~50

by **td11** » Tue May 13, 2014 13:26:42

TenuredVulture wrote:That's like half of Smith's undergrads.

Enrollment
About 2,500 undergraduates in Northampton and 150 studying elsewhere

http://www.smith.edu/about_justthefacts.php

by **SK790** » Tue May 13, 2014 13:43:02

Disgusting intollerant liberals peacefully protesting and petitioning against something they disagree with. What is this world coming to?

by **RichmondPhilsFan** » Tue May 13, 2014 13:46:24

It amuses me that conservative pundits actually think this is a problem worth any level of outrage. I barely even remember my commencement speaker from my college graduation. It was the scientist who headed the Human Genome Project... the only reason I remember him at all is that he pulled out a guitar and played a song at the end. It was pretty funny.

Regardless, this (protesting things) is what college students do. It's what they've always done. It might be more visible now due to the internet and social media, but commencement speakers aren't any more controversial now than they ever were. Notre Dame students protested the sitting president a few years back--over abortion of all things. Dick Cheney once got protested out of the BYU commencement address around 10 years ago... you know, that bastion of liberal correctness.

Houshphandzadeh wrote:if there was a captcha on there, it would have had ~50

And only a fraction of those would actually have been Smith students.

by **Houshphandzadeh** » Tue May 13, 2014 13:49:58

feel like jersey's post was more of a sigh than outrage

by **SK790** » Tue May 13, 2014 13:52:05

Houshphandzadeh wrote:feel like jersey's post was more of a sigh than outrage

jerseyhoya wrote:The tolerant, open minded left on campus grabs another scalp

sigh

by **Houshphandzadeh** » Tue May 13, 2014 13:53:32

yeah, that's like run of the mill internet sarcasm

by **RichmondPhilsFan** » Tue May 13, 2014 13:54:22

Houshphandzadeh wrote:feel like jersey's post was more of a sigh than outrage

I said "any level of outrage" (I think the line quoted by SK fits that phrase), and I wasn't limiting it to jersey's post anyway. I've seen several different media outlets bemoaning these liberal protesters.

by **SK790** » Tue May 13, 2014 13:57:08

i don't see why it's noteworthy at all. the students at a private university didn't like the things their commencement speaker stood for, they peacefully protested and petitioned against her, and she withdrew. if anything, this is how thing should happen much more often.

i mean, here's the quote from one of these people going after "scalps"

By selecting Ms. Lagarde as the commencement speaker we are supporting the International Monetary Fund and thus going directly against Smith’s values to stand in unity with equality for all women, regardless of race, ethnicity or class. Although we do not wish to disregard all of Ms. Lagarde’s accomplishments as a strong female leader in the world, we also do not want to be represented by someone whose work directly contributes to many of the systems that we are taught to fight against. By having her speak at our commencement, we would be publicly supporting and acknowledging her, and thus the IMF.

so intolerant.

by **TenuredVulture** » Tue May 13, 2014 13:58:11

Maybe I'll have to turn in my lefty card, but I do think the end result of this is to end up with anodyne commencement speakers. I don't see why disagreement is a reason to exclude someone from speaking. Dave Barry is going to find himself very busy. I do think it's abhorrent that commencement speakers often command 5 figure speaking fees and universities fork that money over. And giving honorary degrees to celebrities with no real educational achievements is pretty awful as well. Actually, the best thing might be to simply eliminate the practice altogether. Or to make sure, as our institution seems to, that commencement speakers actually give the university some money rather than the other way around.

I will say that what's happening at Haverford is pretty bizarre though. Not so much the protest, but the speaker's reaction which was pretty confrontational and really I my opinion made Birgeneau look like a much bigger asshole than the handful of Haverford students and faculty who questioned (not really protesting or even opposing) his appearance. I mean, they sent a letter. So who's the real opponent of free speech here?

http://www.phillymag.com/news/2014/05/0 ... al-attack/

by **pacino** » Tue May 13, 2014 14:02:59

<----- TAKE A JOKE AMERICA!!!!!!!

by **CalvinBall** » Tue May 13, 2014 14:05:20

Mexi-can, not mexi-can't

by **td11** » Tue May 13, 2014 14:07:14

housh you already got pac with the avatar this week, man. at least save it for next week

by **RichmondPhilsFan** » Tue May 13, 2014 14:10:24

TenuredVulture wrote:Maybe I'll have to turn in my lefty card, but I do think the end result of this is to end up with anodyne commencement speakers. I don't see why disagreement is a reason to exclude someone from speaking. Dave Barry is going to find himself very busy.

As I said earlier, this has been happening for decades. If that were going to be the end result, then wouldn't it have happened by now? Yet every year, we still see a Salman Rushdie, Sarah Palin, Condi Rice, or whomever getting protested. Some of them withdraw, some of them don't.

by **dajafi** » Tue May 13, 2014 14:31:34

I think the stakes are higher with a commencement speaker, and I thought Rice's grounds for withdrawing--she didn't want to overshadow a very important day--both legitimate and admirable.

What bugs me is when campus leftists actually shout down anyone with an opposing view. My alma mater recently had one such moment that I thought was pretty shameful. Much better to engage the argument and win it than close it off... though this isn't an option with a commencement address, which doesn't include a Q&A.

by **TenuredVulture** » Tue May 13, 2014 16:08:37

dajafi wrote:I think the stakes are higher with a commencement speaker, and I thought Rice's grounds for withdrawing--she didn't want to overshadow a very important day--both legitimate and admirable.

What bugs me is when campus leftists actually shout down anyone with an opposing view. My alma mater recently had one such moment that I thought was pretty shameful. Much better to engage the argument and win it than close it off... though this isn't an option with a commencement address, which doesn't include a Q&A.

The stakes are higher with a commencement speaker, but to some extent, the presence of Condi Rice wasn't the thing that would have overshadowed a special day, it was the people protesting who would've overshadowed the day. Again, I guess I'm going to fail a purity test when I say I don't think she's a war criminal or evil even if she perhaps made serious moral compromises during her time in the Bush administration (but who in politics hasn't?) and thus a disruptive protest would have been inappropriate. The other thing is that commencement at Rutgers (at least when I got my degree there) isn't really a single commencement exercise--there's the university commencement where PhDs get hooded and the main speaker makes a speech and then the various colleges have their own ceremonies where they hand out degrees. Anyway, the real problem with Rutgers seems like the whole thing was a giant clusterfuck and most of the blame from what I can tell resides neither with Rice nor the students but the administration which really seems to be very bad at public relations and probably has a few people thinking back on the Fran Lawrence days fondly.

To me, the problem with commencement speakers and honorary degree recipients isn't the possible controversy that may emerge from time to time, but rather the fact that too often they are exercises in chasing prestige or attention. Pick someone who has a real connection to the institution and has done something interesting and will keep their speech short and will see the whole thing as an honor and will in fact make a big contribution to the university, not charge a 5 figure fee.

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