Trying to dis-invite Condi Rice from being Rutgers commencement speaker

[ellenrr]

Any Rutgers alum or students out there?

Rice was invited thru a secret process, and since, there have been petitions by students and faculty, letters, lots of debate.
At this point, don't know if there is going to be a protest at her appearance, certainly hope so, and I will be there if there is.

There is a surprisingly good editorial in the university paper:

http://www.dailytargum.com/opinion/editorials/rutgers-should-learn-from-brandeis/article_3db335c4-c371-11e3-896d-001a4bcf6878.html

"By presenting Rice with an honorary degree, the University makes clear that it believes Rice’s achievements — which include the political decisions made during her time as Secretary of State, specifically, the invasion and subsequent destruction of Iraq — are in line with the values of the University and are worthy of this honorary degree. It means that the University considers her to be someone the graduating class should look to as a role model. But who gets to make that call? There needs to be a more transparent process of selecting commencement speakers and recipients of an honorary degree because the decision to invite and honor Rice is clearly not representative of our entire university, or even a majority of it, in any way.

We commend Brandeis University for reversing its decision and taking the opinion of its community into consideration. Of course, it is a major embarrassment for the university to have offered the degree to a bigoted person in the first place, but it has at least done the right thing instead of stubbornly refusing to consider a majority opinion to try and save its own face. By refusing to compromise on the issue of not only inviting, but also honoring Rice at our commencement ceremony this year, Rutgers is only digging itself into an even deeper hole."

(Brandeis had invited that notorious Muslim-hater, Hirsi Ali. After a lot of pressure, they dis-invited her.)