Comments on Not in D.C. Anymore

• Commencement Speaker
• Posted by William Sumner Scott , Executive Director on May 5, 2006 at 6:45am EDT

• Does this school have any understanding of the value of free speech in America. Will only the views of the majority be allowed to be expressed? And, to deny access because of where else a person has given a speech is absolute evidence that this campus has no grip on American values.

  John McCain is a decorated war hero, serves as a United States Senator and may run for President of the United States. It is rude and disrespectful of his position to criticize his selection after the invitation was extended.

  If they have a problem it is with the President of the School for not consulting them. They should wait until the speech is over to raise the issue and limit critism to how speakers will be selected in the future.

  These people are rude in addition to their other faults. I regret they will be permitted to continue to teach or go out into the work force to represent America.

  William Sumner Scott, J.D.
  wss@jefound.org

• Free speech
• Posted by Campbell on May 5, 2006 at 7:45am EDT

• Tewksbury brings up a good point--the issue cannot be free speech if only one side is allowed to speak. Unless the New School students change commencement procedure by forcing public discussion that day, their primary means of response will be non-attendance at their own graduation. McCain's denial of opposition at the New School is not a point in his favor, either.

  As one New School student is quoted as saying, graduation is "a day which is supposed to be about celebrating what we stand for." That being the case, it has always surprised me that college presidents don't usually assign the duty of finding and inviting a commencement speaker to the local student-government association--the elected representatives of the students. Certainly, the presidents could reserve the right to approve any choice made; but having the students assume the burden would make good sense, especially at an institution founded on the non-exclusionary principles of the New School.

• does everyone get to speak at graduation
• Posted by Larry on May 5, 2006 at 7:45am EDT

• Mr. Scott, I don’t take a position on the events at New School, but I think that your analysis may be a little off.

  I hardly think that not inviting (or disinviting) a speaker is an curtails free speech. Mr. McCain is not only intelligent but not lacking for funds, and is free and able to get his message out in any number of ways.

  Secondly, as a practical matter, I don’t think that any great ideas were ever conveyed at a graduation speech. Never. Instead, it is simply an opportunity for the school to feel good about attracting the speaker; and the speaker to feel good about being invited.

  Finally, whether or not Mr. McCain is a war hero and/or senator makes little difference to the analysis. Everyone is entitled to the same right to express themselves, and nobody is entitled to do so at New School’s graduation.

• American values
• Posted by Campbell on May 5, 2006 at 7:55am EDT

• Perhaps "inclusion of all people," cited by one student as a major component of New School classes, is not an American value these days.

• Scott--exercising your first amendment rights is rude?
• Posted by LK on May 5, 2006 at 8:15am EDT

• Mr. Scott said: "These people are rude in addition to their other faults." So you think it is rude for college faculty and students to peacefully and respectfully protest a speaker they do not like? I suppose you also believe Iraq war protestors are unpatriotic and traitorous to this country?

• "Rude" Is the Right Term
• Posted by Cal on May 5, 2006 at 9:10am EDT

• McCain is very moderate, perhaps right in the middle--neither right nor left. The point here, though, is that he was invited to speak by due process. The purpose of commencement speeches is to charge the graduating class to go forth and be successful, strive toward ethical careers, etc., all to the tune of Edward Elgar's "Pomp and Circumstance," and the parents, faculty, and others will admire the graduates in all their finery.

  To advocate uninviting a speaker is definitely rude, according to Emily post. This behavior is most uncivil.

  Have a happy day!

• McCain at New School
• Posted by Art Leonard , Professor at NY Law School on May 5, 2006 at 10:05am EDT

• I think it is unfortunate when administrators pick (or accept) commencement speakers whose positions on important public issues are obnoxious to a large portion of the graduating class. Commencement is their day to celebrate. It's not a free speech issue at all, since the commencement speaker platform is not one voice in a debate. When accompanied by an honorary degree, as in this case, it is a stamp of endorsement from the institution.

  We had a similar situation develop at our institution back in 1991. Our dean had sent an invitation to President Bush to speak. the invitation went out sometime in 1990, and was pending for so long that out of frustration at not having an answer, the dean invited Mayor Dinkins. Then, somewhat out of the blue, when the dust had settled from the first Gulf War, a call came from the White House that the president was unavailable but his chief of staff, John Sununu, could come. Without consulting faculty (but I believe after consulting some board members) the dean accepted after getting an OK from the mayor for both of them to speak.

  Some students and faculty were very upset at the choice of Sununu, a controversial man then embroiled in ethical issues who subsequently resigned under fire. A few of us decided not to sit on the stage with him in protest. (Our school is small enough that the entire faculty sits on the stage for commencement.) At the ceremony, protesters from ACT-UP-NY broke into the hall and tossed fake blood at the stage. It was quite exciting, and everybody breathed a sigh of relief when Sununu made his unmemorable remarks and left. Then Mayor Dinkins took the stage inspired furious applause from the audience. Well, at least it was a memorable commencement, but Sununu didn't belong on the stage.

  A final point about McCain. He's not middle-of-the-road by any means. His voting record in the Senate puts him solidly among the conservative Republicans. He's a maverick on a handful of issues, but far to the right of Rudy Giuliani or George Pataki, to take two prominent Republican examples.

• McCain Can Handle the Heat
• Posted by Jim Boyle on May 5, 2006 at 10:05am EDT

• The most moving eulogy I have ever witnessed was delivered by John McCain, as he stood in the well of a suburban DC synagogue at the funeral of David Ifshin, a committed liberal, Democratic campaign operative and someone who, as a student activist, stood beside Jane Fonda when she visited Hanoi, not far from where Mr. McCain spent six years in a prison cell. Messrs. McCain and Ifshin had met after the Vietnam War, at a symposium that brought together people from all sides of the debate. They agreed to disagree about the war's efficacy, but learned to respect each other's views and, above all, to be civil and friendly to each other and to those around them. The New School students are free, of course, to protest Mr. McCain's appearance, but when he approaches the podium I hope that they listen to what he has to say. His words will likely contain more wisdom than they expect, and more inspiration than their cynicism deserves.

• Posted by ML at New York City on May 5, 2006 at 10:35am EDT

• I agree with other commentors that it is rude and inappropriate (and anti-free-speech) to uninvite a speaker. However, that does not mean this incident is without its problems. Rather, it points to the fact that while commencement is a time for an institution to show off the prestige it can muster in getting a big-name speaker, it is also a time for people who have worked hard for four years in a particular campus community to celebrate their acheivements and say good-bye to a place that has often been fundamental in shaping their adult charecter. There should be some attention on the part of the university administration to choose commencement speakers that are in keeping with the general community of students who enroll their, speakers who will make the last day of students' lives at their institution a meaningful part of their undergraduate experience.

  Many small colleges do this by giving students varying degrees of formal influence in the process, from suggesting potential speakers to voting on a slate of candidates. I see no reason why universities could not open up the process to undergraduate involvement as well.

• Ethics
• Posted by Campbell on May 5, 2006 at 10:40am EDT

• Cal, I agree with you on all points, although I have heard a few good commencement speakers who had something substantive to say. In this case, though, the students seem to think that McCain is antipathetic to the goals and purposes of the school from which they will be graduating. Surely, the ideas--that is, the details of the speaker's background, not just the integrity of the speaker--matter, even at commencement? On the other hand, perhaps the students have not learned something the New School is attempting to teach?

• McCain
• Posted by Campbell on May 5, 2006 at 10:50am EDT

• To Jim Boyle: Your description of Mr. McCain fits others I have read and heard. I hope they are truly representative of him. Perhaps that is why he was invited to speak--at both Liberty and the New School.

• Posted by Brian on May 5, 2006 at 12:10pm EDT

• So, we've got two stories about invitations to conservative speakers causing university students to have the vapors.

  Now how about we "balance" that with a story about some college inviting a liberal to be the commencement speaker and how it caused a similar reaction from students? There must be one somewhere, right?

• McCain
• Posted by New School alum on May 5, 2006 at 12:40pm EDT

• New School faculty are as up in arms as the students. And remember the first people to protest against Condi Rice at the Boston College commencement were divinity school professors.

  The fact is, to some people the New School still means something, stemming from its founding by John Dewey and Charles Beard, through the university in exile it created for Jewish and other intellectuals forced out of Germany in the 1930s, up until today.

  Not only were the students not consulted, the faculty were not either, which is a process used at other universities. The bigger problem is university governance. The New School has an untrained president who has no relevant administrative experience and is used to being kow-towed to as a former US Senator.

• Posted by DUstin on May 5, 2006 at 1:15pm EDT

• As a New School student, I find this development deeply disturbing, and were I still in NY I'd be right beside the students protesting this. As others have noted, this is not a free speech issue -- if it were, I'd expect those condemning the protesting students and professors to support *their* rights as well as the beleaguered, victimized, marginalized McCain's. The protests are about a near-total disconnect between McCain's (and by extension Kerrey's) ideals and those of the vast majority of the school's.

  To wit: "Kerrey said that McCain is 'clearly within the mainstream of American political thinking today.'" Thing is, the New SChool is *not* within the mainstream of American political thinking today. It *prides itself* on being well outside the mainstream. It is one of the only schools in the country where Marxists teach in the economics department -- which I don't see hard-rightist McCain really engaging. It is a school founded by and continuing to attract war resisters, who again I do not see McCain engaging in a meaningful way. What lesson does McCain have to offer the New School's graduates? What lesson does he have to offer students who have already chosen a different path than the one McCain walks and rejected McCain's "mainstream" politics? This isn't to say that students shouldn't be exposed to ideas that challenge their own -- but graduates at the New School have spent their whole academic careers being exposed to ideas that challenge their own. Why not send them forth into the world with the support and wisdom of a thinker whose words might provide something more meaningful than yet another exercise to deconstruct and critique the banalities of "mainstream" political thought?

• Graduation speakers
• Posted by Robert Hollander , Professor Emeritus at Princeton University on May 5, 2006 at 1:15pm EDT

• My goodness, what a tempest in a teapot! Does anyone really imagine that anybody present at the New School will remember what John McCain will say at the graduation ceremonies? How did we Americans ever get stuck with so foolish a tradition, anyway? We deserve the long hours we put in, listening in the heat, sometimes the rain, to drivel. By the way, John McCain is one of the few human beings who just might be a memorable graduation speaker (if you've never done one, you have no idea what a difficult genre it is). And remember, you folks on the Left, it was he who convinced Pres. Bush to disavow torture as an instrument of American foreign policy.
  My own institution, Princeton, is not free of cant, naturally; it _is_ an institution; it is in the field of education; it is administered by people who need to keep their eye on financial needs (probably three strikes against it right there). But Princeton does one thing brilliantly: it does not have a commencement speaker (pause for effect). That's right, it DOES NOT HAVE A COMMENCEMENT SPEAKER (pause for thunderous applause, joyous shouts, thrown money, etc.) We trust our president to offer some remarks at the end of the ceremony to the graduating class, their families, and those faculty who choose to attend, sitting there in their kimonos waiting to be done. If the president should happen to go on a bit (as one once chose to), the students are not above applauding lengthily and ironically, just to let the Pres. know it's _their_ day. That all sounds pretty good, doesn't it? Princeton also has a tradition of inviting a speaker to entertain the graduands the day before Commencement, at Class Day. This person is generally of a background in the comic arts. A few years ago, Jerry Seinfeld was there. Last year (I think it was) Jon Stewart entertained. This year it is to be Bill Clinton.

• McCain anti-gay ?
• Posted by Ray O'Donohue at University of Virginia on May 5, 2006 at 4:00pm EDT

• McCain's opposition to gay marriage does not mean that he is anti-gay.Perhaps a required course in Logic would be a useful addition to the curriculum at the New School.

• Posted by william douglas on May 6, 2006 at 5:30am EDT

• stop being so closed minded and allow free speech for a change

• Fascists
• Posted by David on May 6, 2006 at 5:30am EDT

• The school should be ashamed of itself for turning out a bunch of Fascists. These students talk about inclusivity, but then practice the equivalent of "book burning." I can bet you that many of these students are not for polygamy. Not very inclusive now are they? Hypocrites.

• No sense of history
• Posted by Jeff Johnson on May 6, 2006 at 5:30am EDT

• I hesitate to ever comment in forums such as this but I must express my profound hope that Larry is not a representative of higher education or that he has simply never heard of Washington University, Winston Churchill or the Iron Curtain.

• McCain Speech
• Posted by Jim G on May 6, 2006 at 5:30am EDT

• Isn't interesting that "free speech" to liberals means NOT allowing someone with a view which is in dissent of theirs to speak? Read some of the liberal comments here, "Sununu didn't belong on the stage", "Dinkins (a liberal by the way) received thunderous applause", and any other such comments. Dissent is in the eye of the beholder. Liberals DO NOT own the market on dissent. What liberals can't seem to grasp is that conservatives are dissenters to the liberal viewpoint. I just find it so amusing that liberals use terms like "diversity of ideas", "free speech", etc, in the same explanation of why someone should not be allowed to practice such. It goes along with liberal arrogance of either believe as we believe or something is wrong with you and you should have no rights.

• Posted by Naish , Ms. on May 6, 2006 at 5:35am EDT

• Student Harper Keenan notes that in "our classes we're taught the value of inclusion of all people . . ." except of course conservatives, republicans, war heros, christians, people with old fashioned family values.

  Well, you get the idea.

• immaturity, ignorance and intolerance
• Posted by Dr. George Succhko at Univ. of Texas -HSC on May 6, 2006 at 5:35am EDT

• It is fascinating to read the comments of freshman or seniors who don't know diddly about life. Trained in the inanities of social 'sciences" they wouldn't know a damn thing about the real world. The pro- fessorial construct they abide by is fit only for the pseudo-world of universities.Good luck in life you little fools. Is it any wonder your ilk cannot find productive employment ; you know nothing except to complain!

• Why the Outrage and Anger?
• Posted by EB on May 6, 2006 at 5:35am EDT

• I fail to understand the outrage and excess emotion that the students and faculty of the New School feel about having John McCain as their guest speaker. For a school that prides itself on teaching tolerance and being open to new ideas, this negative response to someone that is different than those at the New School is puzzling. I would think it refreshing to have exposure to someone with different views than I. But it's not about tolerance, is it? It's about anger and negative emotion--and relying on incorrect information. (If you disagree with someone's position, it's best to do your homework and know what their position really is before you start spouting off.) If this were Sen. Ted Kennedy, would the response be the same? I think not. The sad part is that these students and faculty who are so bent on driving Sen. McCain away are the true losers of this situation. I have had the good fortune to work with Sen. McCain and I can honestly say that, despite differing political convictions, I have found this man to be one of the most honorable people this country has produced. He is a man of his word--what you see is what you get. He embodies grace and courage, a true gentleman in every sense of the word. I wish we had more leaders like him. He will not make this speech about politics. He will discuss his favorite topic: character. What it means to be a good person, the importance of looking beyond oneself and service. But the outraged students and faculty will be too angry to listen to what he has to say. It's a shame because they could learn something from Sen. McCain.

• commencement speaker hysterics
• Posted by Deborah Weiss , Ms. on May 6, 2006 at 5:35am EDT

• These carry-ons about commencement speakers constitute yet another proof of what a humorless and self-important culture we have become in the hands of the nannies and the virtucrats, who see no inconsistency in silencing speech if it does not represent what they deem to be appropriate viewpoints (“free” speech can only be tolerated once it has passed the diversity test). Their little ears hurt dreadfully if they are obliged to listen to a point of view that has not been carefully vetted and purged for content. Luckily for them this hardly ever happens any more.

  All this is useful I suppose as a kind of living history--it offers a little window into what it must have been like to live in New Salem Village during the witch frenzy, when the Very Best People--the equivalent of our contemporary professoriate and their ardent followers—whipped everyone into a frenzy of fear and suspicion and destroyed a good many lives in the process. Poor Dr. Kerrey, trying to deal with these latter-day witch hunters…it’s a lost cause, I’m afraid, and to propose the requisite deep breath and cooling-off will do no good. Tolerance, humor, humility—these are no longer included amongst the public virtues. What a horrid world these new puritans are making for the rest of us.
  D. Weiss

• Life in the Bubble
• Posted by Rick F. on May 6, 2006 at 5:35am EDT

• If New School had invited the Rev. Jerry Falwell
  to speak, I could understand the student's concern. Falwell is an icon for all religious, conservative thought. But McCain is just a soft spoken, mealy mouthed, presidential wanna-be. There is nothing to fear from him as he is more than willing to adopt whatever position his audience requires.

  The real mystery is why did Liberty University lower its standards for commencement?

  If the students at New School will listen to McCain, I am sure that they will find him to be sympathetic to all their well intentioned ideals.

• New School
• Posted by Mike on May 6, 2006 at 5:40am EDT

• “In all of our classes we’re taught the value of inclusion of all people,” he said, “and we’re taught to question our leaders.”

  I wonder how they teach inclusion in Math and Science? Perhaps this is part of the problem?

• Posted by Andrew Bryant on May 6, 2006 at 5:40am EDT

• Art,
  I would bet a fair amount of money that even at your small school there were a number of people who disagreed with Mayor Dinkins as well. Should he have been banned also? Free speech is about more than not throwing someone in jail. It is also not trying to silence everyone with whom you may disagree by throwing fake blood on them ... though I'm sure that was quite exciting and good fun for some people.
  Free speech is about the marketplace of ideas. Good ideas gain ground and win out over bad ones. The First Amendment says nothing about protecting people from being offended but can be seen as a vehicle to ensure people, especially students, are exposed to a wide variety of ideas: some better than others.
  Let's hope this school has taught them how to fairly evaluate the merits of an argument and weed out the chaff.

  p.s. I had Hillary at my college graduation and didn't protest her ideas that I thought were dangerous and spiteful.

• New School Students Protest McCain?
• Posted by Glen Comuntzis , Professor of Government on May 6, 2006 at 5:40am EDT

• Excuse me, but is the "New School" an institution of "higher learning?" If students at that university have NOT been taught the value of the 1st Amendment, perhaps the New School should withhold its diplomas until they do!

  While I teach the discipline now, and worked for BOTH party leaderships in both the U.S. Senate and U.S. House, (and IN Nebraska), I Chaired a week-long series of speakers at my university's 14 colleges, while I was an undergraduate. We did NOT support everything that was said by all, but we UPHELD the 1st Amendment as good, thinking, Citizens of our nation should!

  If the New School's students are unable to discern the importance of the 1st Amendment, they will soon learn that they have a lot in common with those fascist nations against whom this nation has taken up arms over the years. The 1st Amendment must NOT be allowed to be the first casualty of ignorance on or off the university campus.

  The students' protest against McCain appears to be McCarthyism in reverse which is just as despicable in a university setting where all ideas are supposed to be open to debate and thought; and wherein all students SHOULD be exposed to thought-provoking ideas.

  That students' thinking processes do NOT value such freedoms speaks more about them than John McCain.

  Bob Kerry, one of this nation's great public officials, has a lot of work to do at the New School

  Respectfully,
  G. Glen Comuntzis

• Tolerance
• Posted by Steve on May 6, 2006 at 5:40am EDT

• I respectfully submit to New School students, that one of the things you must learn to deal with in life, is that you don't always get your way. Sometimes the elected President of the U.S., or your local Congressman is not who you voted for. But you must live with it, or leave the country... your choice. A big part of maturing as a person and developing character, is that you must tolerate situations not to your liking. Your "rights" are not being violated here.

  And I'm concerned about the comments saying "IT'S NOT ABOUT FREE SPEECH!". Sure it is. Free speech is a foundation of our society, much more important and time-proven than young people's not-yet-fully-mature emotions. Not meant as a put-down at all, you can't help your age. But there is a huge difference between wisdom and knowledge.... judgement and raw data. You haven't had the opportunity to deal with many of the things that us old fogies have. You are a much different person at 40 than you are at 20. Same as that you are wiser at 20 than you were at 10...yes?

  I don't like McCain's politics personally, but he is a respectable man. I truly mean this respectfully.... kids/young adults: learn to practice the tolerance that you demand for yourselves, and learn how to deal with things when you don't like them....you will likely have a lifetime full of it.

  Close your mind to his thoughts, and you are 100% as intolerant as what you accuse other of being. How you deal with adversity reveals much about your character and your future. Whining and complaining is not how you advance your causes or convince others that you are right.

  SW

• MCCAIN
• Posted by Eric Smith , INCLUSION on May 6, 2006 at 5:40am EDT

• I find it once again sad that those who are so "open minded" and who remind us to be "inclusive" want to ensure that students hear only what is on the approved menu. Since when did it become wrong to have a strong view on something and to speak about it?

  Newsflash for you students....to sit and politiely listen to someone with whom you totally disagree is not "caving in", but rather "growing up." Your elitism is showing a bit when you try to tell the entire school who should and should not be heard.

• New School Speaker
• Posted by E. M. on May 6, 2006 at 5:45am EDT

• Speakers are for one purpose, to inspire and to challange and to accept into the working larger world a new set of graduates. Nothing more. To give words of encouragement. You may not agree with the mans views or his politics, he in his own way has a most impressive life, something new graduates can inspire to. There is nothing wrong with serving your country, going into politices, serving in the Senate. Things some from this class already think of doing. Drop all the controversy. The students, and even more the faculty should let this day be what it is, a day to enjoy, pass on, start a new life with inspriing words. We need need to stop putting and left and right on everything that happens in this country.

• New School, Liberty U: more alike than you think
• Posted by Andy at University of Chicago on May 6, 2006 at 5:45am EDT

• I'm afraid that would interfere with the Marxist economics being taught there, Ray. Boasting about Marxists in the economics department is roughly akin to touting the creationists in a university's biology division. Perhaps Liberty and New School have more in common than they think. They apparently share a dogmatic and blinkered view of the world, at the very least.

  I took a trip around the New School website and the list of student organizations. Gay rights group, check. Feminist club, check. Students Against the War, check. Students for a Democratic Society, check. No sign of the College Republicans, however. No indication of any conservative speaker who ever came to campus.

  Which leads me to ask: If the New School is truly so diverse and listens to all points of view, can they name a single Republican (other than McCain) who was invited to speak at the campus this year? Anybody?

• Inclusion
• Posted by Kenneth Jackson on May 6, 2006 at 5:45am EDT

• I just love it when people preach inclusion while seeking to exclude.

• response to william
• Posted by dan on May 6, 2006 at 5:45am EDT

• Free speech..can I Adress the graduation on the benefits of animal sex?
  You say, we al should be allowed to speak, so what say you?

• Left Wing Superstitions Threatened By Dissenting Views
• Posted by Ramon Arias on May 6, 2006 at 5:45am EDT

• George Orwell had it right in 1984 when he identified Big Brother's politics as IngSoc (English Socialism). Like Big Brother, Left wing politics never survives the presence of dissenting opinions, which is why politically correct pidgeons squawk loudly at Republican speakers.

  News flash lefties: many of us taxpaying Americans are repulsed by your Abortion absolutist fetishim. We're also grossed out by your unquestioning embrace of the cult of homosexuality. And we're not fooled by your selective morality that excuses a White House Democrat who bombs medicine factories in the Sudan, starves 5000 Iraqui children a month for 8 years while the UN and Democrat donor$ stuff their pockets with Saddam's black market cash. Sweet dreams.

• Diversity
• Posted by Lynn Hunt on May 6, 2006 at 6:45am EDT

• Ah yes, this school of higher learning is teaching and fully understands Diversity. That is , diversity that only agrees to their way of thinking. Surely the must see their hypocracy!!! On second thought I doubt it!!

• re: Free Speech
• Posted by PM on May 6, 2006 at 6:45am EDT

• I'm responding to Campbell’s ridiculous statement that an “issue cannot be free speech if only one side is allowed to speak.” Both he and Mr. Tewksbury’s assertion that free speech requires a counter point is totally incorrect. What they are referring to is a known in common circles as a debate. So Campbell, before one speaks their mind they need to go find someone with the opposite point of view before they are protected by the 1st amendment? Should Cindy Sheehan have gone and found someone who disagreed with her before she began her protest? Since she didn’t is her speech not protected by the 1st amendment? It scares me how uneducated these kids are….either that or that’s what one of their disingenuous professors taught them.

  Free speech in a nutshell is about being to express views idea without fear of retaliation from the government. Here’s the text of the 1st amendment…you should know it before you espouse about it.

  Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

• elites?
• Posted by Larry on May 6, 2006 at 9:00am EDT

• Why are people using the term “elitism” like it is a bad thing? New School, for all its good points, is hardly elite. Secondly, being “elite” is good thing. For many families and employers, not being “elite” is a bad thing. I know I sure wouldn’t want to lose my status as an elite. Even though it was almost a foregone conclusion (because of my family’s social status) I like to think that I worked hard to be an elite. Likewise, most departments and school either 1) are elite; 2) wish they were elite; or 3) refuse to hire professors that don’t have some indicia of being elite. Elites built this country, and will run it long after we are all gone.

  I still don’t get why you people think that this is a free speech issue. New School can invite or disinvite anyone they want. It isn’t a government entity. At worst, a spurned speaker might have a breach of contract claim. He could, at best, only get damages for his troubles.

  Finally, as one speaker points out, the First Amendment doesn’t guarantee that people listen to, or even stage, opposing viewpoints. Indeed, most viewpoints are expressed without counterbalancing viewpoints.

• Posted by RH Griego on May 6, 2006 at 9:00am EDT

• Give me a break folks. Graduation is for the graduates and they should have had a say in who speaks. It is their day after several years of taking classes and reaching for the brass ring. If they do not want John for their speaker let it be so. Lets stopo being "politicaly correct" get off your soap boxes about free speach etc. Outsiders should not have a say in who is to speak, let the students voices be heard.

• Posted by jt on May 6, 2006 at 9:00am EDT

• What I do not understand what about the other students rights. The article states
  a few hundred students and teachers and family memebers out of 9,000 students. What if the other 8,000 want him then what.Also the petition is signed by teachers and family members should it not be just the students.

• McCain
• Posted by Mike Manuel on May 6, 2006 at 9:05am EDT

• After working with debate for a number of years I found my students better understood both sides when they understood the reasoning involved by those having opposing viewpoints. Senator McCain, I am sure, will be speaking about issues that are appropriate for commencement not political issues. From the comments, the students are also anti-war but I don't hear them complaining about McCain's service. As for free speech, the other side of the gay issue is being exercised through petition and vocal opposition. I would be interested to know if the students at New School have enough class to be courteous during the commencement

• POLARIZATION
• Posted by Steve on May 6, 2006 at 9:05am EDT

• At first I was receptive to the idea that students should be the ones to choose their commencement speakers, but then I considered how this would lead to further polarization of thought at our universities and, from there, our society. The New School attracts students with a liberal ideology, who comprise a majority there. Assuming the majority always selects a speaker who reflects their ideology, conservative students will never be allowed to express what "they stand for". Over time, this will cause conservative enrollment to fall and create at the New School an even more rarefied atmosphere of liberalism. Not a good way to prepare them for a world where they have to live, work, and play alongside people whose views might be completely opposed to theirs. The same kind of argument holds for places like Liberty University, whose student body would undoubtedly always choose conservative speakers. Perhaps a moderate university leadership is better able to select speakers from diverse backgrounds and ideologies than is its "tyrannical majority" of students.

• John McCain and the New School
• Posted by John Maksim at N/A on May 6, 2006 at 10:00am EDT

• I am surprised and disappointed that some of our nation’s best and brightest, speaking from the platform of prestigious educational institutions, would allow their very personal concerns for the trivial matter of sexual orientation to trump much larger and much more important national and global issues of politics, war, and national strategy.

  Senator McCain is a man of accomplishment and integrity. These students should be honored that he has chosen to appear before them. Instead, they seek to silence a great American voice.

  In closing, this incident indicates why leftist politics in the United States is bankrupt. When the dazzling complexities of the world are viewed through a monochromatic and narrow lens of sexual orientation, the nation is the poorer for it. And those who choose to sit in silence and to stare through that lens do not deserve the term “educated.”

  With regards,

  John Maksim

• Posted by S. Chaudhuri on May 6, 2006 at 11:30am EDT

• I used to have a positive impression of John McCain as someone who represented a reasoned approach to political and social issues. But a close look at his record, as has been done recently by the New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, indicates that Mr. McCain is an opportunist at best. His unequivocal support of the Irag war, opposition to abortion, and gay rights, and his cozying up with characters like Jerry Fallwell put him in the category of politicians who are out of line with the forces of change. Mr. MacCain's actions belie his maverick image. Students at the New School have every right to ask the school administration to disinvite Mr. McCain from delivering the commencement address.

• Posted by Gil on May 6, 2006 at 11:35am EDT

• I have not read all the comments, so perhaps my reaction to Larry saying "I don't think that any great ideas were ever conveyed at a graduation speech" has already been registered. Apparently, Larry doesn't think the Marshall Plan was a great idea.

• bankrupt ?
• Posted by Larry on May 6, 2006 at 11:35am EDT

• John, Bankrupt is a legal term which applies to individuals who seek protection from creditors (though some bankruptcies can be involuntary, I don't think you care about this). I don’t see how a term (that non-lawyers use) to describe certain political beliefs can be “bankrupt.” However, as other posters point out, 1) whether he has integrity or not doesn’t matter; 2) he isn’t entitled to speak at New School; 3) New School is under no obligation to make him speak; 4) if he was to speak he probably would not do anything besides say something motivational (since all graduation speeches re free from content.) Indeed, as a general matter few people with certain politics are ever asked to speak because they just are not considered that famous. I mean, when was the last time someone making under $20,000 per year and believed in the Illuminati was asked to speak at any school. Finally, New School is not that prestigious a school (fair or unfair). It is definitely overshadowed by the other schools on 5th Avenue.

• Thinking and Integrity
• Posted by Doug Super on May 6, 2006 at 11:35am EDT

• A wise philosophy professor once told his students that thinkers with integrity always seek out the best arguments on all sides of an issue and are never afraid of those with differing views. John McCain, himself a thinker with great integrity, will pick a topic and an approach that fits your school, its students and the times.

• Taking a stand?
• Posted by John Meeks on May 6, 2006 at 11:35am EDT

• John McCain is obviously trying to strategically position himself by agreeing to speak at this school.
  It's hard not to be a cynic about McCain after he cozies up to the same President who used the 2000 primaries to imply that McCain had a mixed-race baby just to turn of social conservatives.
  It's hard not to be a cynic about McCain when he plays kissy face with the same Karl Rove and attack dogs that cost McCain the South Carolina primary using interracial dating as the 'wedge' issue.
  The Left is not alone in sticking to useless issues at the expense of substance. Both Right and Left are known to pander to their extremes for brownie points but do absolutely nothing for the center but suppress voter turnout even more.

• New School-McCain
• Posted by Sy Dill on May 6, 2006 at 11:35am EDT

• As an alumnus of the New School, I am greatly disappointed by the largely ignorant complaints aimed against Senator McCain.

  He served his country well. I doubt if one percent of those critical of the Senator gave similarly. The rudeness and the false issues that they bring against him only show up the shallowness of their thinking. They will not acknowledge that of all people in the U.S., he is deamed by most Americans as having the best shot of being next President.

  Shame on the know-nothings of the New School that have brought disgrace to oiur good name.

• Substance or Fluff for Graduation...
• Posted by John Hadley on May 6, 2006 at 11:35am EDT

• Mmmm let's see, a political leader or a Hollywood actor, which one should be our graduation speaker? It may mean so much to you now at your tender age to stand up and protest against having someone of substance speak at your commencement but it will be years later when you'll realize the squandered opportunity for a naive belief.

  You’ll learn as you grow older and wiser from life’s experiences to be tolerant of others and to hear opposing views knowing you have the inner strength to withstand any challenges to your hard earned beliefs.

  I was once a college student with high ideals and visions which I thought everyone should believe in. Now as an adult, I realize not everyone will have my morals, my goals or my drive and that’s fine with me now. Life has a way of educating you the way no college or university can.

• Commencement is about the students
• Posted by Suzy on May 6, 2006 at 11:35am EDT

• As a member of the class of 2006 at BC, where Dr. Rice will be speaking, I can honestly say that this whole controversy is kind of crazy. I have been to MANY commencement exercises (the function of coming from a large family), and with the exception of Meryl Streep, who is NOT an inherently political figure, I have never heard anything political come in a commencement address. While a certain amount of personal ideology goes into the speeches, they are about life lessons. Though I am extremely liberal in my own political views, I believe that both Dr. Rice and Sen. McCain have a number of life life lessons that can be useful and important to graduates. Perhaps I can even learn something about WHY Dr. Rice has adopted her ideology to better understand the conservative view point, which will undoubtedly help me understand my own political activism better.

  All in all, the major point is that commencement is about the students. I, along with my classmates, have worked for 4, 5, somtimes 9 years for this day when we receive our degrees. No matter who is on stage delivering an address and receiving a perfunctory honorary degree, the focus should be on the accomplishments of the class of 2006, not the politics. I feel that all the shouting from BOTH sides is doing nothing but detracting from the intent of the day: to honor the graduates of the university. I am looking forward to Dr. Rice's address as one part of a long day of celebration of my class's accomplishments, and I sincerely hope that no antics like the blood throwing that happened with Sununu will marr what should be a day about the graduates.

• Graduation
• Posted by Jewelyn at Tulane University on May 6, 2006 at 2:20pm EDT

• Graduation is a time where speakers come, not to promote their political views, but to inspire graduates to get on their way. If student bodies and faculty always chose speakers, would there ever be a conservative speaker at a commencement besides at maybe Liberty or George Mason? There are SO few conservative institutions anymore.

  My school brough Howard Dean two years ago to speak on "non-partisan" issues. Mind you, this was the March of 2004. Needless to see, partisan issues came up. Later, they tried to remedy the situation by bringing Ben Stein, a conservative to speak on non-partisan issues. The only time politics came up was when a student asked how he could justify working with Republicans as a member of the Jewish community.

  Now my school is bringing President George H.W. Bush and President Bill Clinton to speak at my commemcement. I'm excited to see both. I am a conservative, but I am grateful when I have the opportunity to see politicians speak on the hope of a future, NOT on political issues. That's what commemcment is about. The New School kids need to be grateful they get to see someone like McCain.

• What do You Expect?
• Posted by Pete , Major at The Real World on May 6, 2006 at 2:25pm EDT

• The graduates of New School have spent their existence in a physical and emotional santuary of Theory. Fearful and petrified of Reality, but feeling secure and safe, surrounded by faculty and an institution that cheerfully accepts their parents money in exchange for the job of reinforcing their illusions. Now, they sense the clock ticking faster and faster towards the moment the dread most, when they are squeezed out of the santuary and into the great unknown, never to be able to return to the place where life was so safe, easy and comfortable. Panic begins to set in as they start to realize that their entire belief system is a drop of oil in the ocean of the real world. Somehow, deep in the back of their repressed thoughts, they know that they will ultimately break down and dissolve into the community of Reality. Marriage, children, a house in the suburbs, an SUV in the driveway...that is the fate that awaits them all. Desparate to hold on to their fantasy for just a little longer, the lash out at anything and everyone...

  Senator McCain can give them the shortest and most meaningful of all graduation speeches:

  "GROW UP!!!!!!!!!!"

• McCain as Grad Speaker
• Posted by Randolph Phillips on May 6, 2006 at 2:25pm EDT

• Most of these comments relate to "free speech", a right I ferventl ysupport. If McCain were being invited to lecture, no matter what the subject, opposition to his appearance at a university-which is supposed to tolerate a "university" of opinions-- these "free speech" comments might be apt.

  But as Commencement Speaker, McCain is there for other reasons than a free give and take of views. He's there because he is a celebrity, likely presidential candidate, and maybe President Kerry--himself a vietnam vet who may feel solidarity with McCain in some respects--was hoping for favorable publicity for the university.

  I'm not surprized there is opposition to McCain: denying him this podium to promote himself as a candidate for President is not a "free speech" issue.

• Posted by Anne Sharp on May 6, 2006 at 2:25pm EDT

• I would just boycott the commencement.

• Posted by JS on May 6, 2006 at 2:30pm EDT

• THIS IS NOT A FREE SPEECH ISSUE. WE ARE FOOLS TO LET THESE FASCISTS TAKE OVER COMMENCEMENT LIKE IT IS A PLATFORM FOR MCCAINS DEFAMING POLITRICKS. MCCAIN HAS ALL OF THE FREE SPEECH IN THE WORLD. IF HE WAS TO CRAFT A PRESS RELEASE, WITHIN MINUTES IT WOULD BE IN THE HANDS OF EVERY CORPORATE MEDIA OUTLET IN THIS COUNTRY. IF YOU WANT TO TALK ABOUT FREE SPEECH THEN TALK ABOUT HOW KERREY AND THE UNIVERSITY ARENT ALLOWING THE STUDENTS TO SPEAK OR SELECT A SPEAKER THAT REPRESENTS THEM. TO HELL WITH MCCAIN. TO HELL WITH KERREY. NONE HAVE ANY TRUE IDEA OF WHAT FREEDOM OF SPEECH OR DEMOCRACY IS. KERREY SAYS MCCAIN IS ONE OF THE BEST POLITICIANS OF OUR TIME. IF BEING A RACIST BIGOT WHO SUPPORTS GENOCIDAL POLICIES AND ACTIONS MEANS BEING ONE OF THE BEST POLITICIANS OF OUR TIME, THEN I GUESS KERREY IS RIGHT.

  LONG LIVE THE PEOPLE'S RESISTANCE
  ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE
  NO POWER TO THE ADMINS

• Come On!!
• Posted by Joe P at MMA Alumni on May 6, 2006 at 2:30pm EDT

• We had Senator McCain give our commencement speech last year at my graduation and he did a remarkable job. I have since seen a few other commencement ceremonies and its the same idea each time..go out into the world..give back..count your blessings..strive for excellence..etc... The commencement ceremony isnt a political event no matter how you try to spin it. I'ts asinine to think they could find anyone person to speak that would satisfy every student or faculty member. These students just want something to gripe about.

• Inclusion vs Exclusion vs Diversity vs Whatever
• Posted by Harry Fettuccini on May 6, 2006 at 2:30pm EDT

• The staff and students who condemn McCain,etc., should be proud of their cowardice. To hide behind Acedemia to expound the vitures of socialist communism is a conflict of interest.
  All these sorry slots are looking forward to working in a free Capitalist society to achieve a life style forbidden by their school staffs.
  Scrambled Egges for Brains is nothing new comming from the Halls of Lower learning.

• McCain is very anti-gay
• Posted by Jegusa on May 6, 2006 at 2:30pm EDT

• In his last interview with Tim Russert, McCain laid out just how anti-gay he is. There is no question. He stated he is supporting AZ's anti-gay-marriage bill but he does not support a constitutional amendment. However, he followed that up with the statement that if the state's anti-gay-marriage law was taken to the Supreme Court and found to be unconstitutional, THEN he would support a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.

  He's a homopohobic bigot, just like the rest of them.

• Posted by Dustin on May 6, 2006 at 2:30pm EDT

• What a surprising rush of anti-free speech comments. Not the one's supporting McCain, the one's telling New School students to shut the f*** up already and learn to live with disappointment. Some of the comments are downright ridiculous -- such as the ones that slight NS students for daring to oppose a war hero. May I remind folks that NS President Kerrey, too, is a war hero, of the same war (what's more, he may well be a war criminal, too!). These are students who are experienced at living with ex-soldiers in their midst -- even acting respectfully towards same.

  May I also point out that among other colleges, the New School of Social Research is home to one of the leading schools of social science in the country, many of whom will be receiving MAs and PhDs at the graduation? Even at the undergrad level (which is a small part of the NS's student body) these students are politically, socially, and culturally engaged -- it's the heart of the NS program. NS students know McCain, and they know McCain's ideas -- some of them have written dissertations on them. This is *NOT* about "diversity of thought", about students refusing to be exposed to new ideas -- that's ridiculous! The New School regularly hosts panels and debates including thinkers from across the political spectrum. This is *NOT* about students shrinking from "real world" concerns, either -- anyone who witnessed the NS response after 9/11 (much of the NS is below 14th Street in Manhattan), who saw students organizing and delivering lunches, water , and other supplies to Ground Zero, as well as setting up break areas and "survivor centers" for workers, victims, and persons displaced by the attacks cannot accuse these students of being disconnected from reality.

  The comments above seem to think commencement addresses should be seen as an educational experience, and in opposing it these NS students are rejecting new ideas. But McCain is not new ideas at the NS -- there's nothing he can say that NS students aren't already deeply familiar with. The opposition to McCain is not an opposition to the ideas he may express in his address, it's a political opposition to the hiring of a non-academic, political figure. The concensus here seems to be that the choice is McCain or an actor -- what about a great thinker, as befits the New School's historical tradition? What about a writer or artist or scientist, someone who can actually expand the horizons of these extremely well-educated students -- rather than a political hack grubbing for a presidential nomination? What I don't see here is the outrage that a university of quality would sell itself as a stage for politics-as-usual, the condemnation for a political actor using academia as a pitstop on a building campaign.

  No, let's all pretend it's a free speech issue...

• inclusive?
• Posted by Steven Flanders on May 6, 2006 at 5:35pm EDT

• I'm always amazed at the unthinking, lock step approach of those on the left.

  If this was a somewhat conservative campus that had invited a liberal commencement speaker, and then some of the conservative students had objected, the story would be all about the repressive right, and their being afraid of the truth.

  I increasingly wonder how long it will be before those who see thmeselves as progressive iconoclasts notice that their views are always the same as the big government/ big corporate rulers. It must be a very comforting delusion to see yourself as a free thinker, and yet feel that all right thinking people agree with you; so much so that anyone who doesn't shoud be silenced.

• Free Speech?
• Posted by Rick on May 6, 2006 at 5:40pm EDT

• I'm chucking to myself as I read the comments by (what appears to be) right wing supporters. This is NOT a freedom of speech issue. I believe the students/academia are basing their opposition on the political beliefs of John McCain (which, by the way, are not mainstream - his voting record is waaayyy to the right). This is their commencement and they should have some sort of say in who should be speaking.

  Where was all this concern about freedom of speech when anti-war demonstrators and anyone else who disagreed with the Bush administration were branded as being unpatriotic. What a bunch of hypocrites!!!

• John McCain
• Posted by Patricia on May 6, 2006 at 5:40pm EDT

• As a New School student, I'm in agreement with much of what Dustin said in his previous comment. It's not a matter of free speech--if McCain were invited to be on a panel and express his views, I think most people would welcome him coming to the New School--I really doubt that there would be any protest against such an event. But commencement is an event for the students, not some event for political grandstanding. I used to think of McCain as an ethical person but after he began kissing the ass of a man who viciously trashed his wife and daughter during the 2000 campaign, I lost respect for him. His courting of Fallwell just reinforces this opinion. Supporting the ban on abortion, which includes victims of rape and incest, is reprehensible to me and I am exercising MY free speech by protesting the appearance of someone who holds such a view, ditto for his views on gay marriage.
  Bob Kerrey was hired to head the New School in part because he was a talented fundraiser. Shortly after joining the New School, articles about Vietnam war crimes surfaced, killings which Kerrey has not denied. His ability to raise funds for NS plummeted and many students and faculty felt he should leave, as much from an ethical as a financial perspective. Yet we at the New School continue to fund him with an expensive residence and salary while he waits for the right political opportunity. As for free speech at NS, during the run-up to the Iraq war, which Kerrey vigorously supported, teachers who opposed invading Iraq were harrassed and threatened. Kerrey has actively fought the efforts of those who wanted to unionize teaching assistants. He should show more respect for the opinions of students and faculty at NS and more awarenesss of its admittedly liberal heritage instead of using the school for the ambitions of himself and his political cronies.
  Conservatives only seem concerned with free speech when conservative attitudes are being expressed. I don't hear them protesting the exclusion of liberal viewpoints in much of the main stream media. Who are the diverse speakers being invited to Liberty U's commencement--how many liberals are speaking there? Where is the protest if they are not?

• Posted by Jackie J on May 6, 2006 at 5:40pm EDT

• Hypocrisy indeed. I don't mean the protesters at New School--I mean those of you who know perfectly well you would not be here crying about free speech rights if the speaker were Ward Churchill.

  Honoring free speech does not mean staying silent in the face of someone abetting those who mean to criminalize your existence. By these distorted standards, you would have these students and professors listen to--and politely applaud?--Saddam Hussein.

• Posted by Andy at University of Chicago on May 6, 2006 at 5:40pm EDT

• Dustin wrote:

  "The New School regularly hosts panels and debates including thinkers from across the political spectrum."

  I asked earlier on this thread for somebody to name one Republican other than McCain who was invited by the New School to speak this past year and no one has responded. Dustin, perhaps you can name one? Maybe one who appeared on one of these broad-spectrum panels?

• The real free speech issue
• Posted by Mickeleh at Columbia College (alum) on May 6, 2006 at 5:45pm EDT

• Objecting to McCain as a commencement speaker is not a free speech issue. As if a U.S. Senator, frequent guest on Sunday morning news talk and occasionly op-ed columnist, McCain has ample oportunity to air his views. Graduation is an important life milestone. Why force students to spend it in the presence of a strong supporter of the Bush administration? If there's a free speech issue surrounding this event is the freedom of protesters to object before, during, and after the event. McCain, stand with Fallwell and Bush. You're entitled to that. But mar the commencement of students who object to your presence? I'm with the students. Stay away from the New School. As For Kerry's need to score a name speaker? Bogus. If you attend the New School, you are doing it for the quality of the education and faculty, not for the assurance of an A-list commencement speaker.

• SIMPLE
• Posted by Matt on May 6, 2006 at 5:45pm EDT

• All this chatter is fine, but the fact is the University makes the decision -- you (students and professors) are the customers and employees -- not the management. Take the "education" and taxpayer subsidized paychecks you signed up for or take your business elsewhere if you are dissatisfied -- just like the rest of us.

• New School/McCain
• Posted by Eric Chase at Radio Broadcaster on May 6, 2006 at 5:45pm EDT

• Students at the New School should consider Fidel Castro for commencement speaker. He would keep them on the edge of their seats for 3 or 4 hours!

• More Critical Thinking Needed in this Thread
• Posted by Brock Hotaling on May 6, 2006 at 5:45pm EDT

• It's sad that a board representing higher education seems to attract so little in the way of solid critical thinking on this issue.

  Shocking to see even some "professors?" chime in on "free speech" when this has virtually nothing to do with free speech. Thanks to a couple clearer-headed people who tried to set the record straight. For those trying to make this a "free speech" issue, I submit that either 1) you have a political agenda, or 2) you need to understand what a commencement speech is all about.

  Generally, universities try to get a speaker able to raise the status of the university and one whose background finds a threshold of fit within the ethos of the community. If this were Liberty U. we were talking about, what are the chances that Jerry Falwell would invite Hillary Clinton as their commencement speaker? If that improbable event were to occur, a good thought experiment would be to consider the faculty and student body reaction. Liberty is the right-wing analog to left-wing New School, and as unlikely as it is to find a thriving Young Republicans chapter at NSU, it's just as unlikely to find a thriving Young Democrats at Liberty. A gay pride organization at Liberty has about the same likelihood as a ROTC presence at NSU.

  That is as it should be. Each has its place in the American voice. This country has always had its verkrampte voice and its verligte voice, even before Anne Hutchinson and Roger Williams had to flee from the hard-ballers of Massachusetts Bay. It's rare, however, for any institution to hand over its single most prominent public platform to someone who represents the antithesis of the larger polity or community.

  The choice of commencement speaker carries this symbolic weight, and in many universities, the student body and faculty are heavily involved due to the historical experience of disconnects between the preferences of an often remote administration and a more in-tune faculty and student body. After all, this is their one day in four years that truly belongs to them.

  The Marshall Plan speech and other historically-significant speeches are an aberration and largely belong to days past when there was less polarization than exists in the body politic today. Any university would put at the top of its priority list a personage with the gravitas and intellectual power to make such a speech, but these birds are on the edge of extinction.

  At my son's university commencement, Rod Paige, Bush's former Education Secretary, gave the commencement speech, and I was hopeful that he would give something personal and worthy of the rise of an African-American to the most powerful administrative education post in the world.

  Instead, we got a blatant exposition of neocon education policy with the full push for vouchers and government aid to parochial schools, etc., delivered in a campaign-like script. I wish I could say it was Rovian in its eloquence, but it failed to meet even high-school standards of speech-writing and was an embarrassing example of American education placing political values above educational values.

  There was a sense of betrayal among many in the audience that this was neither the time nor the place for Rod Paige's unvarnished political grandstanding for Bush, that this was a moment to celebrate the achievements of the graduates, give them some personal insight into how they might handle their future, and acknowledge the tremendous sacrifices of their families appropriately.

  Free speech is an issue for the classroom and school-sponsored seminars, and anyone who would disparage New School would do well to check the respective records of New School and its inverse-doppelganger Liberty to the degree they entertain and respect alternate points of view on campus. Being familiar with associates from each, I would lay money on New School having the greater courage to engage antithetical viewpoints in civilized academic debate. Anyone who wishes to check the record, feel free to disabuse me of this opinion with facts.

  In full disclosure, I am neither a liberal nor a Democrat, nor an active proponent of either New School or Liberty's political positions.

• McCain
• Posted by Chris on May 6, 2006 at 8:05pm EDT

• Oh brother...folks, get real. This is not about "free speech" or suppression thereof, nor is it about righteous opposition to a graduation speech that is somehow expected to devolve into political demogaugery.

  This whole molehill (at New School, Liberty, BC, or otherwise)is the result of academics and students who are determined to live in "interesting times," and are seeking to add some sort of meaning to their otherwise rote, boring lives by protesting the big, evil, homophobic warmonger.

  It's a sad commentary on the insulated bubble that the academic world cocoons itself in when it became an Armageddon-quality issue as to whom among our citizens will give a commencement speech. None of the graduates or professors will remember in four years who the speaker was; however, they won't hesitate to dislocate their shoulders patting themselves on the back pretending they spoke "truth to power" when they were merely indulging their narcissistic pretentiousness.

• Posted by Dustin on May 6, 2006 at 9:35pm EDT

• I've been challenged to name names. Alas, I've been away from NY for several years while doing fieldwork and writing my dissertation, so haven't kept up with recent events, though I'll note that McCain and Kerrey recently did a panel on the 2008 election at the NS. Digging back to the time I was much more directly involved with the school, at my MA commencement, the speaker was the governor of Puerto Rico, Sila Calderon, certainly no liberal. In the aftermath of 9/11, Michael Walzer -- not a conservative but a strong supporter of the wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq, at least at first -- was invited to keynote a conference on terrorism and war. The range of interests within the school itself bely any simple categorization of "conservative and liberal" -- there's America First-types teaching alongside radical immigrant lesbians of color, though in our stupid national black-and-white way of thinking they're probably all just "liberal" (ironically, McCain himself challenges those gross over-simplifications -- which doesn't, however, authorize him to address the New School's sophisticated student body. Maybe any hint of knowledge about the social sciences would help his case...).

• Reasoned thought
• Posted by MS on May 6, 2006 at 9:35pm EDT

• At last! After wading through all of the liberal/conservative nincompoopery, it was refreshing to read something written by someone who can actually THINK! Thanks, Brock. Your comments made it worthwhile for me (and probably a lot of other folks) to sit here and patiently read all of that other drivel. My advice to the rest of you: Read Brock's comments three times a day for thirty days. Maybe some of you will begin to get the hang of logic and reasoning.

• from a graduating NSU student...
• Posted by irene cifra , class of '06 at New School University on May 6, 2006 at 9:40pm EDT

• Of all the posters, can I please ask that we stop making assumptions about the lifestyles or identities of students, faculty and staff who are in opposition to McCain speaking at commencement as well as those who are in favor of him speaking? Can we please not resort to making disrespectful and condescending comments and passive-aggressive digs at the quality of education, the quality of discussion, the intellectual capacity of either side? Clearly it is getting in the way of having a constructive discussion on the topic at hand: the implications of McCain speaking at commencement.

  As a graduating senior who is involved in organizing opposition, along with Harper and Greg Tewksbury, I am obviously against McCain speaking at commencement. I will not claim not to have been educated in Marxist thought or not to have spent most of my studies focusing on issues of race, gender, sexuality and the marginalization of "deviants" from traditional, white, patriarchal, heteronormative ideals. For the most part, I'm very comfortable with what I've learned thus far of this discourse and I am using it as the basis for much of my argument. I make no claims to having perfect analysis nor absolute knowledge so any arguments, provided that they are respectful, will be most welcome.

  I would like to reiterate that this is not an issue of barring opposing ideologies from being presented at the school. McCain spoke earlier at New School and there was no problem. He discussed with Bob Kerrey "the Mathematics of Electoral College Politics" on January 22, 2004. We welcome all ideologies and we acknowledge that we have much to learn from opposing views and about our own but we learn from engaging and discussing points of conflict and if we are to learn much from Sen. McCain, it will not be at commencement.

  What is in contention is not what he will say, but the implications of being chosen as the commencement speaker as well as one of the recipients of an honorary degree. I must stress that we acknowledge the nature of event as well as the decision. Commencement is for graduates and should not bear any political weight whatsoever. But let's not kid ourselves. No one is ever apolitical, especially public figures. No person is ever chosen to speak at commencement without serious consideration of what their presence in this specific context will mean. No one has the luxury (or unfortunate circumstance) of living in a vacuum. We are all political beings simply because of our identities as white males, working class women, as queer senior citizens, as students of color, as immigrants, etc...in addition to the political ideology to which we subscribe. Our presences have meanings in specific contexts just as Sen. McCain's presence has meaning at the New School. As a public figure, he does not easily escape his ties to his political ideology.

  What does the presence of a person who supports the war, is anti-reproductive rights, is anti-gay marriage say in the context of a commencement ceremony of a school founded on progressive ideals and whose community is reflective of the already marginal communities that McCain seeks to further marginalize?

  Granted he did pass an anti-torture bill and co-authored the McCain-Kennedy Immigration Reform bill, both of which I have very strong criticisms, but these "maverick" actions should not divert attention from his other actions. His anti-torture bill has been a huge selling point for McCain speaking, but does the anti-torture bill neutralize his stance on reproductive rights?

  What does it mean that he is being given an honorary degree and will be part of the graduating class of 2006 of New School University? What does it mean that no one in the community was consulted in this decision? What does it mean in the context of McCain as a 2008 presidential hopeful? What is the broader picture?

  Although he does have several decades on many of the graduating class and the recognition and support of a chunk of the US population, I still refuse to have an endorsement his politics made in my name, which I believe his honorary degree and honor of being commencement speaker do. As a member of the New School community, I strongly disapprove of what I believe to be his use of the New School reputation to make him seem more palatable to on the left side of the political spectrum.

• McCain's commencement speech at The New School
• Posted by tom melton , Commander at my house on May 6, 2006 at 9:40pm EDT

• Why get so upset? I graduated 3 times, and never can remember who said what to whom. I and my buddies, girls and boys, were planning (and plotting, even at the age of 27) to party, and chase each other, and otherwise give ourselves relief from what we had had to learn, in order to get the degree from the school. Life? That comes from the school of hard knocks, unless you are a Kerry or a Kennedy or a Bush, which I am not, and am glad I am/was not. I don't even vote (in order to study the American Way, without distraction) and do find McCain an honorable man, albeit frightening with his Liberty/Falwell connection, and anti-abortion stance. He wants to win in '08, as does Hillary. Let him (and her) do what h/sh/e thinks they have to do to win. Mo' betta than the ca-ca that runs our army these days. Chill, students. Life goes on, and so will you. Party on, dudes/dudettes, lighten up, or skip the speech. You are done with that school.

• Condosleaza Lies
• Posted by M. Guyot on May 7, 2006 at 5:35am EDT

• So Condosleaza Lies is being given an honorary degree by BC? What in, Propaganda and War Crimes? She certainly is a Master of those.

• Posted by KevinSeanO on May 7, 2006 at 5:35am EDT

• A dreadful metaphor. Swiss cheese and peanut butter sandwiches are delicious!

• Another comment from the NSU class of '06
• Posted by Gina , Graduating NSU student on May 7, 2006 at 5:35am EDT

• The only reason I'm hesitant to support McCain speaking at our graduation later this month is the obvious political implications of his speech. Speaking at Liberty University and then the New School, two schools who are polar opposites in ideology? Only a political neophyte would be able to ignore the way he's trying to position himself on the political spectrum. What better way to show you're a candidate for everyone if you speak at a school with a rightist foundation, and then a leftist school later on in the month?

  As a side note, I would have loved to see Senator McCain speak after the 2004 election, regardless of his politics.

• Sen. John McCain
• Posted by John Lobenstein at SJSU 76 on May 7, 2006 at 5:35am EDT

• Since when have commencement ceremonies been a public forum for discussions. I thought the purpose of a commencement speech was to provoke and challenge the graduating class to enter the real world and do their best to improve their personal, political, and global environments.

  What benefit will anyone receive from a plate full of political pablum?

• John McCain To Speak At Graduation Ceremonies
• Posted by Tom Hibbard on May 7, 2006 at 5:35am EDT

• Until the article about Senator McCain showed up on the Drudge Report I'd never heard of New School. Reading about the debate taking place on campus I experienced a similar reaction to characters in the movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid who kept asking: "Who are those guys?"

  I did, however, enjoy the verbal jousting.

  New School students -- presumably reasonably intelligent people -- have it wrong as to why McCain should not be allowed to speak at graduation ceremonies. It is not because of his conservative stance on certain issues that trouble liberal students (who oppose free speech?). No, that is insufficient reason to disinvite The Senator. Why not say it like it is: John McCain is boring.

  P.S. So is Hillary Clinton.

• John McCain and Free Speech
• Posted by Lynn P on May 7, 2006 at 5:40am EDT

• This debate is not and should not be considered as being about free speech. College commencement is intended as a reward and honorarium for the graduating students; it is not for the President of the school nor for his choice of speaker. It is the students’ day and it should be their prerogative to weigh in on who their commencement speaker will be. They should not be required to listen to some one who is the antithesis of what they believe. If President Kerrey wants to invite McCain to the school under a different venue to give his speech that would be fine and he should be allowed to speak at that time. Why make their graduation day into a political football? Probably no ambitious politician, liberal or conservative, should be allowed to speak at any graduation exercise.

• Posted by colin on May 7, 2006 at 5:40am EDT

• I thought I KNEW IT ALL when I was back in college, but over time my views have changed. In fact, I regret many of my votes. These kids should keep an open mind. They should listen to different views for a change. They have decided at such a young age to not listen to anybody, but people that they agree with. They are being narrow minded. They talk about tolerance (difference in opinion), but do not practice it themselves.

• McCain is no moderate
• Posted by Wade Steenburgh on May 7, 2006 at 5:40am EDT

• Some have described "McCain is very moderate". I once believed that. But he has been a loyal Republican, and in his support of his party he has lurched to the right. I find his unwavering support for the qWagmire in Iraq to be dishonorable. A "moderate" would recognize the folly for what it is and call those who are responsible for it to task. A "moderate" politician might seek a middle course on abortion rights, but McCain is pandering to the Christocrats in order to obtain the 2008 Republican nomination. I once contribute to McCain's presidential bid- but never again. The man is no moderate, but just another political oportunist.

• Posted by Andrew , The days to come on May 7, 2006 at 5:40am EDT

• First thing is first, I am not a college graduate, so I can't say that I have ever had the the opportunity to listen to a graduation speech. What I do have a hard time believe is that McCain is there to depicted his world and soon to be presidential views. This is merely a speech to the send you silver spoon, winnie ass babies, who have nothing better to do with your time the piss and moan, off into a world that you know nothing about. If this is what college has to offer I am glad that I choice not to go.

• Not In DC Anymore
• Posted by Frank Robbins on May 7, 2006 at 5:40am EDT

• As a retired senior citizen, I am always amazed at the double standard that selected students, especially from liberal groups, attempt to impose. I do not agree with everything that John McCain has to say, but I respect him as an honored American who states what he believes and has represented his constituents and our country well. I expect that the same students that are looking for issues with McCain would openly welcome a congressman from Rhode Island with a history of drug and alcohol problems, who has shown himself to be above the law, without any questions asked.

• Free speech
• Posted by Reason on May 7, 2006 at 8:25am EDT

• Why is the left so fearful of ideas that are not lock step in line with it's own? Just as in breeding animals, incestuous thinking begets defective thought processes. And, just in case their is any possibility of penetrating the ova-like minds that have been closed by first-sperm-like dogma - - your first amendment right to free speech does NOT give you the right to interfere with another's first amendment right to free speech. That is not a circular artgument. It is just common sense, which unfortunately seems not to have been passed down through the liberal gene pool. And many liberals now also believe it is acceptable to incite violence at an anti-war rallys, or wish for the death of politicians who support the death penalty. No lie! Get into the heart-of-hearts of many quasi-liberals and you will discover nazi-like intolerance and bigotry that should truly alarm true liberals. Bottom line: let McCain speak you incestuous intolerant bigots.

• Three from Kurt Vonnegut
• Posted by Whig H. Clay on May 7, 2006 at 8:50am EDT

• Having noting original to add to this discussion in my own words, I defer to Kurt Vonnegut:

  1. Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before.

  2. I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you different.

  3. True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school [or in this case, university] class is running the country.

  I must add, however, that by far the most edifying remarks came from Brock.

• McCain / NS
• Posted by Pete Orsi , Patriot on May 7, 2006 at 8:50am EDT

• Wagon pullers of America, hang on, another crop of “Rugged Individualists” from the New School is on its way.
  Ha!
  Do you suppose even one of these self absorbed; latte sipping, Marxist brats will ever contribute a bit of worth to this country?
  Nice job Kerrey, it’s a little late in the game to be introducing these dilettantes to a man of substance like John McCain.

• Posted by Ken Wolf , Insignificant on May 7, 2006 at 9:05am EDT

• The New School and it's students are insignificant, in the grand scheme of things, and not worthy of all the fuss over their "protests."

• Not in D.C. Anymore
• Posted by Mike Wittman on May 7, 2006 at 9:05am EDT

• I think these graduates need to get a life and maybe worry more about say, finding a job rather than getting thier underwear in a twist over who is going to speak at a commencement ceremony that most of them will snooze through.

• Posted by Anthony Passalacqua on May 7, 2006 at 9:15am EDT

• I haven't gone through all of the postings, but of the posts that I did read I didn't see any that commented on the student statements about the word "taught". It seemed as though every other word was "taught". The final statement I read said that they had been "taught" to question their leaders. Does this require a comment? Talk about robotic thinking.Just what America needs, more indoctrinated vegetables parroting the 60's hippie faculty.

• Why so afraid of differing views?
• Posted by I am me on May 7, 2006 at 9:50am EDT

• Please explain why Liberals are so afraid of having other views expressed on college campuses? They say they are all for free speech and diversity of views...but they never mean it. Their idea of diversity is moderate liberalsim to off-the-wall liberalism!

  Fear of real diversity shows their intellectual insecurity with their positions and arguments.

• Commencement speaker more like our heroes!
• Posted by C. Chavez , alumni at the New School on May 7, 2006 at 10:20am EDT

• The New School should NOT give a platform to politicians whose views are in direct opposition to everything for which the school stands. Mao Zedong, Joseph Stalin, Vladimir Lenin, Karl Marx were Giants fully aligned with our progressive social values. Why can’t the commencement be given by a contemporary political leader more like our heroes?

• Free Speech
• Posted by Tracy Gorman on May 7, 2006 at 10:40am EDT

• I really think it's ironic that the point of view in this country who screams the loudest when someone they oppose is expressing his or her views are the liberals. Seriously, think about it. They're always upset when someone says something they do not agree with, and they go after that person voraciously. Instead of doing that, they should be excited that more points of views are being expressed.

  I think it's awesome that John McCain is speaking at New School. I would not agree with the school's philosophy, I am sure, but I also wouldn't boycott it because of my thoughts. I think it's degrading for the students there to be demanding a retraction of the commencement address invitation. Instead, go, sit, and listen to someone else's point of view, and keep your mouth shut out of respect for a true American hero, much like the president of New School is.

  You people amaze me with your hypocricy!

• Posted by William Justice on May 7, 2006 at 12:05pm EDT

• The most remarkable thing that sticks in my mind about Sen. McCain is the merciless beating he took from the Bush camp in the Presidential primaries. His family was assaulted with no limits. Which speaks of the ruthlessness of Karl Rove. This has been a benchmark of how the Bush team does business. Because their leader has no merits of his own to run on, the common, accepted procedure is to make the opponent look even less attractive (true or not). This type of conduct from the Bush team and how warmly it was embraced by the Republican voters in general should have been a wake up call and a clear signal of what lay in the future for this nation. It conjured up images of a Pit Bull locking his eyes on a Yorkie which had foolishly decided to pee in the same spot as the Pit Bull. After surviving the attack the Yorkie cuttle up to the Pit Bull. One is left to draw their own conclusions. Mine is, if McCain doesn't respect himself enough to defend himself, how can he expect anyone else to?

  If a commencement speech should be about anything, it should focus on truth, hope, and positive thinking for the future. If I were a graduating student at any university I don't believe I would want McCain pointing me in that direction. The merits of the message often rests in the merits of the messenger?

• Posted by John J on May 7, 2006 at 12:05pm EDT

• Why are these students, who preach inclusion and understanding, blatently badmouthing Liberty College with out even knowning anything about the college?

  "Oh it's Jerry Fallwell's college, so it must be the house of liberal horrors."

  These students are a model for soon to be over educated, liberal, conformists everywhere.

• Who Are You Calling a Whiney Baby?
• Posted by Beth at New School BA/ Center for Modern Psychoanalytic Studies on May 7, 2006 at 12:05pm EDT

• I am a forty-seven year old student at the New School. When I enrolled last fall, I thought the welcome introduction to the undergraduates was condescending and consumer-oriented. So, I wrote to the head of the undergraduate department. He apologized for appearing to condescend and pander. At the introduction, President Kerrey stayed for approximately five minutes. I was concerned that his motive was to sell the university as a "newer" academic structure; one that would commodify and spin the illusion of freedom of speech. This activity might have jived with the malleability of a younger undergraduate's self-perception. It didn't work for me, although I am taking classes. How can these comments be tied into Senator McCain's selection as commencement speaker for '06? Well, its all about the money, people. If the school's administration makes these choices at strategic times, there may be more endowment cash coming from conservatives. Have no fear. We are watching capitalism, not politics, although the two are conjoined by the pale blood of hypocrisy.

• Posted by Jose Aguilar on May 7, 2006 at 12:05pm EDT

• When did our friends on the left become the "New McCarthyites," looking under the bed for "neocons," or anyone else who doesn't fit their narrow views of who is and who is not "acceptable?"

  I find it rather ironic that students at the New School (and other liberal institutions) routinely object to conservative speakers by using the "intolerant" monkier, when they themselves display a spirit of intolerance by being unwilling to even listen to views they may disagree with.

  America is not about a cultural elite, preaching to the rest of us about who is and who is not a "moral person."

  Unless these paranoid, intellectually arrogant people begin to respect the principle of free speech for ALL, then they have abrogated the spirit of intellectual discovery and education.

  It is so sad to see our elite institutions of higher learning descend into a cultish tribalism which refuses to even hear views they may find "objectionable."

• McCain
• Posted by Randall C on May 7, 2006 at 12:45pm EDT

• It saddens me to see what our higher educational system is in when I read outright contempt of "the left", which is fixed rhetoric to dehumanize another group of people -- the bedrock of discrimination. The "Left," or "Lefties", only exist inside your head and is a threat to your own survival as a "superior being.” Of course you won’t admit to that, but that is your intent. Your logic is only based on separating others and if you need to lie to do that, then it’s no problem. There is a big difference between “We” and “Me” which I find the main difference in political affiliation. The Right are the ones pulling this country apart and if you still engage in dialogue where you knowingly promote falsehoods, you are a willful conspirator in a promoting violence against other tax paying Americans. You need to walk a mile in their shoes (gays and lesbians) before you’re hijacked by primal reactions to destroy. No matter what you think homosexuality is, they deserve every right as heterosexuals because this is a country of equality. If it conflicts with your religion, you are free not to sleep with someone of your own gender.

  You should feel the blow of your own hand. Only then will you realize the harm you do to this country.

  Now, back to the point at hand: McCain has anti-gay positions. Your only argument is that you want the Left to be tolerant of the Right’s intolerance, but until you start living by the golden rule, you should live in the fear you impose on gays and lesbians. McCain had two camps to choose from and he chose one. Why should the “Left” make him feel comfortable for his discrimination?

• Liberty student against McCain
• Posted by J.J. on May 7, 2006 at 12:45pm EDT

• As a student of Liberty University I am opposed to McCain speaking at our commencement this Saturday. I feel probably the same way the students at this New York school do because to me McCain is playing on both sides of the fence. He is appealing to the liberals as well as the conservatives by speaking at LU as well as the N.Y. school and Columbia. I know he says he is a conservative but his record shows otherwise.

• McCain at Liberty
• Posted by J.J. on May 7, 2006 at 12:50pm EDT

• CORRECTION: when I said "his record shows otherwise I did not mean his voting record". I just meant his record with how he talks and his actions towards both parties.

• Thank you, Dustin!
• Posted by Peter Porcupine on May 7, 2006 at 1:25pm EDT

• You came clean, and admitted that...um...well, maybe there WEREN'T any bona-fide conservatives on any of these 'panels' - but gee - we already KNOW what they think right? We all have our Nation subscriptions!

  I AM a conservative Republican, and what amuses me most is that John McCain is regarded in GOP circles as irretreviably liberal! Try inviting George Allen or Tom Tancredo if you'd REALLY like to hear some 'divergent' points of view!

  Which leads me to my final thought - and I DID read all the comments. You children seem PETRIFIED that your hot-house view of the world will be blighted by even hearing an opposing point of view. Which means that you don't really have any faith in it. Instead, you will slink about in your East/West Coast catacombs, sipping your Starbucks and grousing about how those flyover folk still outnumber you.

  Perhaps President Kerrey should consider a student exchange program with Texas instead of Lyons, and let these children learn about a truly foreign culture!

• Posted by abenaki on May 7, 2006 at 1:35pm EDT

• What an ironic twist for Senator McCain! The "McCain-Feingold" bill put a limitation om my, and everyone else's, 1st Amendment "Freedom of Speech". Now, his attempt to speak is being questioned. The circle is coming around to smack him in the mouth....it is much deserved.

• Demogaguery With A Smiley Face- by Brock
• Posted by Ramon Arias on May 7, 2006 at 3:00pm EDT

• >>>>It’s rare, however, for any institution to hand over its single most prominent public platform to someone who represents the antithesis of the larger polity or community.

  >>>>If this were Liberty U. we were talking about, what are the chances that Jerry Falwell would invite Hillary Clinton as their commencement speaker?<<<<<

  Liberals within the academy and without are famous for never letting facts get in the way of politically-correct dogmas. Sophists like Brock feel the same way. So do snake oil salesmen.

  For those fans of Brock, forgive the following intrusion of reality:

  These are interesting times. Rabbi Eric Yoffie, President of the Union for Reform Judaism, spoke today a Liberty University's Convocation.

  In his speech Yoffie downplayed the significant differences that serious Christians of all stripes--especially those to whom he was speaking--have with his own movement's views on abortion and legally protected homosexual unions.

  Here is part of what he said:

  "Your religious tradition prohibits abortion; my religious tradition permits it in some cases and forbids it in others, but believes that every woman must prayerfully make the final decision for herself.

  You oppose gay marriage while we believe in legal protection for gay couples. We understand your reading of the Biblical texts, even if we read those texts in a different way.

  But gay Americans pose no threat to their friends, neighbors, or co-workers, and when two people make a lifelong commitment to each other, we believe it is wrong to deny them the legal guarantees that protect them and their children and benefit the broader society."

  http://www.temple-emanuel.org/remarks_rabbi_yoffie_at_liverty_unniversity/

  Ted Kennedy Addresses Liberty University

  "I hope for an America where the power of faith will always burn brightly, but where no modern Inquisition of any kind will ever light the fires of fear, coercion or angry division....

  People of faith should not invoke the power of the state to decide what everyone can believe or think or read or do. In such cases, like abortion or prayer or prohibition or sexual identity, the proper role of religion is to appeal to the free conscience of each person, not the coercive rule of secular law."
  -- Ted Kennedy, address, Liberty University, Lynchburg, Virginia, October 3, 1983, from Albert J. Menendez and Edd Doerr, The Great Quotations on Religious Freedom

• Posted by Dustin on May 7, 2006 at 3:00pm EDT

• What amazes me is the absolute level of contempt for academia that characterizes a good 2/3 of these comments. I mean, it doesn't surprise me to see that people don't know much aboutthe New School -- it's a small school (though something like 9 colleges scattered around Manhattan) with a name too like NYU's, and lots of people haven'theard of it or think it's part of NYU. I suppose I'd expect people who don't know anything about the school to refrain from expressing that ignorance so loudly (for instance, Eugene Lang, the undergrad school, and the Graduate Faculty -- and some of the other schools -- include real-world experience as admission criteria; there's few daddy-coddled airheads at the New School), but that's just me. But I'd think that, on a website devoted to higher education, there'd be, you know, a little more respect for higher education.

  As to the lack of bona-fide conservatives speaking at NS, I'm not sure I know what makes up a "bona-fide" conservative. I do know that supporters of the war in Iraq speak there and are among the faculty, I do know that opponents of the welfare state have spoken there (and are probably among the faculty), I do know that strong assimilationists have spoken there and are among the faculty, and I do know that supporters of American imperialism have spoken there and are (or were) among its faculty (e.g. Christopher Hitchens who essentially encapsulates the whole of the American political spectrum, largely expressed through drunken mood swings from left to right and back in the course of a sentence). If you're looking for a lot of culture warriors, and that's your bona-fide conservativism, well then I concede -- I don't see much of a market for that at the New School. After all, it's a place of learning and thought.

• Posted by ryan on May 7, 2006 at 4:05pm EDT

• Dustins' final sentence in his letter and the "opposition" to Mccain typify the liberal arrogance, intolerance, and general self absorption.

  Liberals scream and yell whenever someone speaks out against THEIR views, when someone doesn't wish to hear them speak.
  The hypocrisy is thick.

  What these students don't seem to understand--or accept--is that their beliefs are forced upon people everyday through liberal professors, teachers, educational institutions, entertainment industry, etc, advancing a liberal agenda. These are "unwanted" . If the populace at large--who aren't so inclined to accept the beliefs of left or right--has to suffer through having to listen or read them obnxiously
  prattle on and on about issues no one cares about--than they should be able to listen to McCain( person who is far more tolerant than the leftist extremists cited in the article let on.)

  The truth is this is yet another example of liberal hypocrisy and intolerance. If you don't embrace their doctrines, you are give one of a plethora of labels in an effort to marginalize you. I don't think this is what gandhi or MLK envisioned.

• Brilliant Rhetoric from the Left
• Posted by Hubert Smith , Instructor at Rogue Community College on May 7, 2006 at 4:05pm EDT

• Some babe on this page called the Secretary of State "Condoleezza Lies."

  Of course, she didn't even get close on the spelling.

  But it continues to amaze me how adults on the Left find some value (?) in the sort of witty bandinage I hear on my daughter's elementary playground.

• The New School is symptomatic
• Posted by blue on May 7, 2006 at 4:05pm EDT

• of the indoctrination that occurs within our schools these days. Regardless of whether you agree with Mr. McCain, he has accomplished quite a bit in his lifetime. It might do these students to be exposed to someone who has accomplished a lot and who may not share their views. I doubt they get exposed to such people in their school.

• Bottom Line
• Posted by Linda P. on May 7, 2006 at 7:00pm EDT

• Interesting commentary .. and scary at times.
  However the bottom line was given in the very first post by William Sumner Scott:

  "If they have a problem it is with the President of the School for not consulting them. They should wait until the speech is over to raise the issue and limit critism to how speakers will be selected in the future."

  I couldn't agree more. Do you disrespect the people who choose McCain as speaker? If so, you have a larger problem. If not, then accept their choice this time and tell the classes below you they need to change the way these speakers are selected in the first place.

• Inclusion?
• Posted by Michael Morris on May 7, 2006 at 7:00pm EDT

• I find it humerous there is so much talk about McCain's anti-gay politics and that the schools in this article think of themselves as providing for the "inclusion of all". Then the Columbia student says having McCain at her commencement is "like having to invite someone you don't like to your party". That doesn't sound to inclusionary to me.

  These students probably think of themselves as being accepting of an open discourse about the issues...just as long as someone doesn't show up with a dissenting view.

• mccain's right to free speech
• Posted by p-rex on May 7, 2006 at 7:20pm EDT

• john mccain can speak freely, to a very wide audience, practically anytime he wants. he can go on cnn, msnbc, fox, etc.

  that's what being a senator gets you. not getting to give one political speech certainly isn't going to trample his rights or do him any harm by any measure.

  heck, by now he's already gotten plenty of sympathy from the "anti-liberals" out there (just a hint from a moderate, folks: everytime you say "liberal" like it's a bad word or a slur, it alienates moderates like myself even further...but then i would imagine you'll be seeing the negative results of this tactic in november).

  these kids, however, get one graduation ceremony, and one commencement speech. it's an important day in their lives. if they would prefer that the speaker more closely reflect their values and beliefs -- just as i imagine most here would do if they were to have someone speak at an important event in their lives -- then more power to them.

• Posted by Johnny on May 7, 2006 at 7:35pm EDT

• Thats the way it is when Thought and Speech Police control the Schools. They Do Agree with Free Speech as long as They Agree with your speech, otherwise you can't have or express an opinion. This is made evident by Their Actions, Not by my words.

• Posted by Jim Toombs , Once Again Libs Show Their Opposition to Free Speech on May 7, 2006 at 10:05pm EDT

• Yep. It's not about free speech. It's about the fact that he doesn't agree with them. Ooops. That IS free speech. Good little robots. Only listen to those who agree with you. And shout down anyone who doesn't. A mind IS a terrible thing to waste.

• Posted by mike on May 7, 2006 at 10:05pm EDT

• Just to point out that all of the people protesting McCain and saying he can go voice his views anytime he want on some news show and that his graduation speech will be a political speech. If this were a Democrate instead everyone would be praising the selection. But because it is a Republican, they must be taken down. He's not there for a campgian speech

• A couple things
• Posted by RN '06 at The New School on May 7, 2006 at 10:05pm EDT

• "I asked earlier on this thread for somebody to name one Republican other than McCain who was invited by the New School to speak this past year and no one has responded."

  While it certainly is true that the New School is generally an overwhelmingly liberal (some prefer to say 'progressive') university, it is absolutely false to suggest that the New School bars conservatives from speaking on campus. As a matter of fact, they are regularly involved. A few examples have already been mentioned, including Paul Wolfowitz, Christopher Hitchens, and John McCain's previous appearance at the New School. I can add to that list Bill Kristol, who is a regular on political panel discussions, Michael Brown, who spoke at a recent conference put on by Milano, the New School for Urban Policy, Rudolph Giuliani, who contributed to a panel on 9/11 (in fact the 9/11 Commission conducted one of its sessions at the New School), the New School's provost, Arjun Appadurai, who is a leading proponent of globalization (hardly a popular stance among many liberal students) and, lest outsiders and New School students alike forget, the New School was the home operating base for the proto-neocon Leo Strauss in the 1930s and 40s. A conference was held quite recently (in the past month) to assess his contributions to the university, and I can assure you that there were both liberals and conservatives involved in that discussion. Let's be fair and give the New School at least that much credit.

  As a member of the class of 2006, I am rather mixed about this affair. I understand that there are people who would prefer that McCain not speak because of their political differences with him, but that strikes me as such a difficult basis on which to choose a speaker. Is it really possibly to find a speaker who everybody can agree on? I tend to agree with the people who are suggesting that this is a case of making a mountain out of a mole hill - most likely none of us will remember what it was that McCain said at graduation anyways, and there is no doubt that he certainly is a figure of significant stature who can be inspirational for the graduating class, even if they disagree with his stance on abortion or drilling in ANWR or whatever.

  Part of me feels like the New School should be proud of itself for having landed such a prominent speaker (somebody commented to this effect before, that commencement addresses serve mostly to please the ego of the speaker and the institution, I agree) come to the school, and for having gained a significantly greater presence in the public eye. Already, Senator Joe Biden delivered the keynote speech at the inaugural conference of the India-China Institute at the New School, so McCain will not even be the only presidential hopeful to supposedly receive the 'implied endorsement' of the university. Hillary Clinton is confirmed as a speaker for next semester, so I guess she will have the implied endorsement too.

  I'm concerned about the commencement ceremony itself. As many on both sides of the issue have noted, the commencement is about the students (including myself), and I just hope that the students who are protesting McCain's selection remember that there are other students in the audience who may not agree with them and may not appreciate any disruptions that may be planned (there have been rumors). I do not see eye to eye with John McCain on every issue, but I would be very disappointed if my graduation is significantly disrupted over this, and I would be even more embarrassed to explain to my family why those students acted in such a disrespectful way.

• McCain
• Posted by Joe Quinn on May 8, 2006 at 4:40am EDT

• I have disagreed strongly with McCain on his whole approach to "campaign finance reform" as it is an affront to free speech. As someone who created an underground (college) student newspaper in the Philly area way back in '79, I have along term love affair with freedom, especially speech on college campuses. In my old paper, I ruled the roost since I paid for the damn thing, but I found it most interesting when I had invited guest writers take me to task for some of my positions, which included supporting Reagans position on El Salvador. Today, there is peace and a vibrant democratic system in El Salvador rather than a Marxist colony, contrary - I suppose - to the wishes of many highly vocal demonstrators of that period. Today I see the same "know nothing" tribal hatred in these anti-McCain people, because he is, God-forbid, a Republican. And not a very loyal one, at that. Get over you idiots. This remains a free country, despite your immature carping and tunnel vision. Council Member Barron invited that infamous thug, Mugabe, to be anhonored speaker at NYC Hall. Where were you then? Who signed petitions for the jailed journalists and union organizers in Zimbabwe? To say I am disappointed in you, is too shallow a take. I see failure in your protest. You fail to see the glory that our nation possesses. Free expression is a gift, and you, McCain protesters, have come down on the side of thugs who would shut the mouths of everyone except your lapdogs. I am digusted but no suprised. However, when you get out of school and try to get a job in the real world, don't come running to me with your resume. I pass.

• McCain at New School
• Posted by John on May 8, 2006 at 4:40am EDT

• Whether or not one agrees with the Senator's positions, the commencement address will be an excellent opportunity to listen and analyze what is said...and perhaps find a nugget of wisdom that might apply to one's individual life experience.

  One would hope that there is no absence of courtesy toward the Senator among the attendees, as that would only denigrate The New School and it's reputation as an enterprise that revels in the exploration of divergent concepts and ideas.

  I believe McCain is a recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor, an award that is given to those who have made an unusually selfless sacrifice on behalf of others. The CMH is most often posthumous, The New School is truly being honored by his acceptance to give the commencement address.

• Exposure to conservatives
• Posted by David Nieporent on May 8, 2006 at 4:45am EDT

• I'm not sure who is funnier:

  1) RN ‘06, who thinks that CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS, of all people, is a "conservative."

  2) Or Brock, who managed to get plaudits from several commenters for a confused post which praised "critical thinking" without exhibiting any. Best part: the most bizarre use of the word "neocon" I've seen in quite a while:

  "Instead, we got a blatant exposition of neocon education policy with the full push for vouchers and government aid to parochial schools, etc."

  Clearly, Brock had never heard the word before a year or two ago, and he thinks it's some sort of all-purpose insult. "Neocon education policy"? What on earth is he talking about? What exactly do "vouchers" have to do with neoconservatism?

• Posted by Tom on May 8, 2006 at 4:45am EDT

• I found it quite ironic that one of the defenders of rejecting Senator McCain was proud of the fact that some of the faculty were Marxists.

  Hmmm...who was it that kept Mr. McCain in a barbaric prison and tortured him for years? Oh, it was the Marxists...small wonder that they would not want him visiting their school.

• Posted by Middle of the Road , What's the problem? on May 8, 2006 at 6:40am EDT

• Students and faculty of an institution have a right to express their disatisfaction, and yes, even revoke an invitation, of an individual selected to give a commmencement speech. The actions of these students and faculty have nothing even remotely to do with freedom of speech issues.

  And please, stop the knee jerk left vs. right, "I'm right, you're wrong.", arguments. Life is not that simple.

• Condeleeza Rice
• Posted by Bob on May 8, 2006 at 7:35am EDT

• One might wonder why so many "liberals" who supposedly champion civil rights have so much difficulty with the likes of Dr. Rice.
  Could it be because they like to have their Blacks subordinate, someone they can look down on and "feel sorry for," someone who needs them, someone they can enable.

  Mr. McCain has another more constructive view - a view in which minorities and others are independent and successful. So don't be afraid New Schoolers, Mr. McCain's conservative voice is a liberating voice - it doesn't have to be all about you all the time. So listen a little bit and you may be amazed what you learn.

• I agree with the students
• Posted by Dan on May 8, 2006 at 8:20am EDT

• They should stay in their safe little liberal cocoon and avoid anything or anyone who does not agree with their beliefs. Otherwise they may have to consider thoughts and opinions other than the ones that were spoon fed to them by their professors.

  They say that 26 is the new 18 and I think they are right because these students are acting like children and spoiled, smug children at that.

  Thinking for yourself entails more than parroting the views of a professor. Keep an open mind. Question everything and listen to those you don't agree with because they just might give you a different perspective. Even if they do not change your mind, hearing these other people out might give you a better handle on how to talk to them and change their minds. But if that's too much to ask of you, then stay in your safe little liberal cocoons and bask in the warm feelings of your own certainty.

• Posted by l frisch on May 8, 2006 at 8:20am EDT

• Ah, yes, New School is inclusive - of those that share their world view. This issue is illustrative of the follys of higher education in many of the colleges in the U.S. today. Only those that are part of the group think have any value on the campus. Be careful where you put your education dollars!

• Posted by Dan on May 8, 2006 at 8:30am EDT

• Saying the new school is "inclusive" reminds me of a scene from the original Blues Brothers movie. Do you remember when they went into the country and western bar called "Bob's Country Bunker" and asked the waitress what type of music was played in the bar? She replied, "Oh we have both kinds. Country and Western". Somehow I think its similar at the new school. They listen to both sides of the political spectrum and by that I mean left and far left.

• Our Future Begins here
• Posted by Joey at World Can't Wait, DRIVE OUT the Bush Regime on May 8, 2006 at 3:20pm EDT

• We MUST organize a protest, students need to turn their backs on this criminal! Look at the impact that three protesters had during Rumsfeld's speech yesterday, imagine what tone it will set if Columbia and New School both turn their backs on the speaker.

  If you sit now, like we have sat before, this commencement will mark the continuation of our generations silence. how much longer will we sit, passive, paralyzed?

  With all danger comes opportunity, Here is our opportunity to speak to our generation, we are taking out future back, starting at commencment.

  publisize it, don't do it on the margins, get the word out.

  Wear arm bans, turn your back, make posters for you back, we must act now, the future is in the balance.

• Tolerance, etc.
• Posted by Mimi Dupper on May 9, 2006 at 5:55pm EDT

• Let's see if I understand this correctly: the school teaches the importance of the "inclusion of all people" but John McCain cannot be the commencement speaker. The conlusion must be either: a) John McCain is not a "people" but some other life form; b)"inclusion of all people" really means "inclusion of all people with whom we agree"; c) the school has done a very poor job of educating so the students do not understand the conflict between the two positions; or d) the students are world-class hypocrites. Being an astute observer of liberal-think, I believe the answer is "d".

• Another New Schooler's Perspective
• Posted by MB at The New School on May 11, 2006 at 10:40am EDT

• Debates, classrooms, and presentations are for exchanging ideas, but commencement is for inspiration. As has been mentioned by another New Schooler, the New School hosts speakers with conservative ideologies at events that are intended to be educational & foster critical thinking.

  (Christopher Hitchens is certainly a prominent liberal, but his support of a preemptive strike against Iraq made him a persona non grata on the left. So, he doesn't fit the "we host conservatives" model, but he does fit the "we host people we don't agree with" one.)

  In the New School's policy graduate program, we are certainly not spoon fed liberal ideas. We do all of the cost-benefit analyses & deadweight loss considerations that you'd expect of upcoming policy professionals. But the New School is also a place where it is acceptable to question conventional wisdom about the market.

  (On another aside, Marx's actual writings are not what many on the right have in mind when using the term "Marxist." There is certainly a place in a good academic discussion of economics for Marx's thoughts.)

  Would that we all, like Princeton, shunned the ridiculous practice of commencement speakers! But at least if you're going to have a speaker, make it someone that will allow graduates to leave renewed & inspired. We've defended arguments already, now it's time to celebrate. And celebrations generally are kept within the family.

• About this
• Posted by Just bystander on May 14, 2006 at 5:00am EDT

• Whats wrong with the students protesting. They have all the right to do so. If they oppose it, they have write to say it. At least they are doing something about it and not just sitting back and saying "oh well this is life."
  Yes, life isn't fair, but just doing nothing won't change anything. We all have different opinions. Try not to think about only yoursef and value other peoples opinion.
  Let them speak their mind and what happens will happen.

• Liberty College
• Posted by Liberty Dad on May 18, 2006 at 5:40am EDT

• How tacky, the speech said nothing good to the graduating students, it was simply a political stand and a bad one at that, now that you think you can gain votes you want to be friends, and for Jerry, you are in it for the money that he can bring in for you, what about the students, they did't deserve to be used like that, it was their day and you ruined it and didn't even give them any hope for their future, just 30 minutes of how wonderful the war is, I was there for my daughter after 4 years of hard work, you should be ashamed of yourself, you ruined her graduation.

• chilling comments
• Posted by sd , professor at NYU on May 19, 2006 at 8:40am EDT

• Folks: John McCain, in the name of political maneuvering, embraced a man he once (rightfully) condemned. This is certainly not the first time a politician has done such a thing. But look at whom he has embraced: Jerry Falwell, a demagogue who claimed that feminists and gays were responsible for 9/11. THAT IS A FACT.
  It is appalling that McCain does not take a stand against such statements, in the 21st century, as a (potential) presidential candidate. It is equally appalling that Bob Kerrey, president of the New School, would not encourage his students and faculty to turn their backs on McCain, much less disinvite his former colleague in the senate as commencement speaker. A mere zip code away, in OUR BACKYARD, those towers came down, and lives were lost. Some feminist and gay lives, too.
  John McCain is not our ally. Exercise your free speech and let him know how you feel about his embracing of the enemy for political gain.

• Typical Liberal Arrogance
• Posted by Edwin on May 20, 2006 at 11:35am EDT

• The New School protest is simply another example of liberal arrogance. If a liberal is rude, hateful, and disturbs the free speech of a speaker...then, why, it is just the expression of their own freedom of speech. Put the shoe on the other foot, however, and let these same people be treated as rudely by a conservative.....then, why, it is just old-fashioned fascist hooliganism. What a bunch of spoiled little brats! God help us if this is what graduates from our institutes of higher learning.

• }McCain's Speech
• Posted by hesterlynn franklin on May 20, 2006 at 7:00pm EDT

• i am sorry to say that i did not have the opportunity to hear or read mc cain's speech.

  is there any way one could be emailed to me so i will have somethng on which to base a decision?

  any idea how much he got paid to deliver this speech? that could be one reason he "befriended" that college. the money?

  my email is hlf1952@comcast.net

  thank you in advance for your help.

  hesterlynn

• Can't wait for these kids to grow up.
• Posted by allison on May 21, 2006 at 6:10am EDT

• Yes, they are rude, ignorant, spoiled children. Heckling is rude.

  If these children are truly liberals they would be open to other's opinions, even if it is different than their own. If they did not like what he had to say they could have internalized it and focused their efforts on growing into something better than what they were hearing rather than heckling an incredibly succesful person.

  Yes, college is certainly a place for self discovery, young people are incredibly opinionated but this wasn't a sporting event, it was their graduation.

  Wait until they become responsible, get married, have children, pay taxes, make laws, break laws, have mortgages - are they in for a surprise. Their parents are probably mortified that they were so disrespectful.

  Disrespect is a direct reflection of ignorance and ignorant liberals are dangerous people.

  I hope they grow up and realize the world is a whole lot more difficult than sitting siletly through your graduation commencement speech.

  Finally, I'm aghast at the valedictorian, how rude of her to publicly denounce Senator McCain infront of her class. She should have made a speech about freedom of speech instead of being so extreme.

  I thought his speech was enlightening and strong.

  I'm a left, liberal, mother who pays more taxes than those children will probably ever, I'm not thrilled about supporting their future.

  I just hope they grow up fast before they affect my life.

• Liberty speech text
• Posted by Andrew on May 21, 2006 at 6:15am EDT

• McCain's speach to Liberty is on his Web site www.straighttalkamerica.com. It's my understanding they're substantially the same, and that he will add the New School speech there in the next few days.

• again - great speech
• Posted by allison on May 21, 2006 at 11:35am EDT

• If McCain wasn't such a successful person, such a hard worker, such a real person, one may think his speech was an adverisment for himself.

  An educated person with understanding of psychology and philosophy would know that the graduation address he gave at Liberty and at the New School (which NPR played several bits of, especially the rude children heckling) was an attempt to relate, to make himself humble, to enlighten the audience as to the realities of this world.

  again, shame on those members of the student body of The New School, he was relaying a story, his personal life changing moments and trying to give you all a perspective.

  Even if it isn't your own you should respect it.

• McCain vs The World.
• Posted by PJ on May 21, 2006 at 4:15pm EDT

• The absolute cynicism being demonstrated on both sides of this McCain issue is astounding! John McCain spoke at Liberty U and then at the New School. Therefore, he must be positioning himself for the future right? Could it possibly be? Could it possibly be that he is attempting to break down the substantial barriers erected by zealots of both camps and is trying to find some common ground? Or perhaps he is wading into the middle of the dogfight to show them (both sides) the error of their ways or how their logic is self-defeating. Just because JM accepted an invitation to speak at Liberty does not mean he has aligned with them against NS. Conversely, speaking at the NS doesn’t mean he has aligned with them against Liberty. The obvious metaphor here is deeply rooted in college tradition. “If you go to that PHI BETA party then you can’t go to the KAPPA SIGMA party cuz everyone knows that they are enemies. Come on everyone! John McCain is an honorable man who was frankly one of the few in the polarized Senate who dared to reach across the isle (much to the displeasure of his fraternity brothers), join forces with the despised Ted Kennedy and cobble together an immigration reform bill that actually has a chance of passing. Like it or not guys – JM is the closest thing to being middle of the road that has any chance of being elected President. I am sure Bob Kerrey (who had the opportunity to observe and work next to Senator McCain in the US Senate) recognized this and thought the members of the NS community would appreciate it. Wow! Imagine that! Boy was he wrong! Red State vs. Blue State, Gay vs. Straight, Women vs. Men, Black vs. White vs. Brown, Conservative vs. Liberal, Sunni vs. Shia, New School vs. Liberty, etc. etc. It concerns me that enlightened academics don’t recognize the behavior patterns and social forces in play here. You treat one of the few men in an otherwise gutless institution, who breaks lockstep and takes a risk with such contempt and disrespect, it makes me wonder if there is anything but cynicism, ill will and one-upsmanship left.

• I find this ridiculous
• Posted by Ashly at George Washington University on February 28, 2007 at 3:28pm EST

• I graduated from George Washington University, a very liberal, small college in the middle of Washington, DC. I attended that school primarily to expand my thoughts on values, ideas, policies, etc... I came from a fairly conservative family and I hoped to gain knowledge from the other side, and hopefully rebel against my parents and become a democrat. The problem became that I did not share my professor's beliefs and political stances. I just didn't. And I was certainly in a minority. But I attended every graduation that GW held in the years before I finally received my diploma. And I sat through speeches from the most liberal invitees. Did it ever bother me? No. Because I was so proud to live in a country where a commencement speaker could hold such radically different opionions from my own, and I honestly believed this diversity of opinion, this freedom of speech was so important. Shame on the City University students. Truly. Have some respect and understanding as to what John McCain has been through...has survived. He might have some eye-opening experiences, stories to share...whether you respect his politics or not, try and respect words of wisdom from a man with his background. Politics aside. Shame on these students.