<p>Another response, this time from Ruth J Simmons speaking at Smith College.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
</p>
<p><a href=“Ruth J. Simmons speaks at Smith College's 136th commencement: audio - masslive.com”>Ruth J. Simmons speaks at Smith College's 136th commencement: audio - masslive.com;
<p>Completely agree.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The letter in question:</p>
<p><a href=“http://haverfordclerk.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Letter-to-Dr-Robert-Birgeneau.pdf”>http://haverfordclerk.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Letter-to-Dr-Robert-Birgeneau.pdf</a></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Students are free to state their opinions. We all support that. But creating litmus tests for evaluating highly- accomplished adults two or three times their age is indeed arrogant. Notre Dame’s original commencement speaker got ill days before graduation. Some people weren’t at all happy that the replacement, though a godly man of faith and action, wasn’t a Catholic–I guess because these supposedly bright students and staff and their counterparts in other institutions think others have to be just like them and agree with them perfectly to have something valuable to say. And seriously, how arrogant is it for a Rutgers bachelors’ degree student to think he is qualified to evaluate the life and decisions of Dr. Condoleezza Rice–a life of ground-breaking achievement in a worse social climate for blacks and women than today’s, and high-stakes decisions made in a different political era with classified information? It’s not the act of disagreeing with the speaker’s views or actions that bothers me. It’s that they are declaring that person of great achievement not worth listening to, and not worth honoring for the good they did do.</p>
<p>I won’t comment about whether it was right for Bowen to slam the students for their actions but I do think the students need to realize that everybody makes mistakes and that not everybody has the same views on issues. If you dig deep enough into everybody’s past, you will find something that can get them dis-invited from a commencement speech. It scares me that if someday I decide to do something that involves the general public that somebody will be digging through my whole life to find something that I did wrong. (and I’m sure there are plenty of situations in the last 22 years)</p>
<p>“What was the offense for which Bowen felt compelled to publicly call out the Haverford protesters as “arrogant” and “immature”?”</p>
<p>An arrogant and immature letter, that’s what. </p>
<p>"A less arrogant and more mature response from Birgeneau might have led to constructive dialog. Instead a miffed Birgeneau turned down the college’s invitation, "</p>
<p>A less arrogant and more mature letter from the students might have led to constructive dialogue. </p>
<p>Dear student,
You have completed the requirements for a bachelor’s degree from our esteemed university. However, you wrote a really awful, poorly-researched midterm paper for Dr. Brown’s American Studies class your freshman year, and failed the final in Dr. Smith’s class as well. Therefore, Dr. Brown. Dr. Smith, and their colleagues in the history department are vehemently protesting the decision to honor you by allowing you to walk in the commencement ceremony and publicly receive your diploma. Please be aware that they will loudly denounce you if you decide to participate in the ceremony.<br>
Attached please find a list of demands with which you must comply in order to avoid a public protest of your graduation.</p>
<p>Dear student,
Due to the controversy surrounding your worthiness to participate in the upcoming graduation ceremony, there has been further investigation into your background as a member of the college community. Regrettably, a certain youtube video of a fraternity party this year has surfaced, leading the university chaplain to adamantly protest your reprehensible behavior and to declare you morally unfit to be honored with a diploma from this institution…</p>
<p>I’m a bit surprised at the responses here, I personally found Bowen’s remarks extremely inappropriate. It doesn’t really matter what either the Haverford or Berkeley students did, or how the letter was worded, there is no need to bring that up during graduation, especially since most people had nothing to do with the letter. If you want to have a discussion, there are much better ways to go about having one.</p>
<p>I think that students refusing to have speakers who have views other their own and threatening to upset the ceremony if such speaker is part of it, are served right and their class as well to have their graduation have the pall of another speaker who disagrees with them. Good for Bowen for what he did. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>At 18, every citizen is deemed qualified to evaluate the life and decisions high-achieving persons much older than themselves, such as in electing a president. We don’t have to assume that politicians did the right or moral thing simply because we don’t have access to all the classified information. </p>
<p>Yes, but dissent can be respectful, or it can be rude. Name-calling, for example, is rude. Student representatives should be invited to give input in the choice of a graduation speaker/honoree, but once someone is chosen, I think their peers should be gracious to that individual. You may not want Uncle Harry to be invited to attend your wedding, but once he’s been invited anyway by your mother, you should greet him and treat him cordially. Standing up at the reception and yelling at him would be rude.</p>
<p>Is graduation a political event? If not, then any politically-driven views and actions of the speaker are largely irrelevant. If so, then what the Haverford speaker did is fair game. Apparently, students do view the selection of speakers in political terms or else they would not be protesting people like Rice. Her stature qualifies her, apart from party affiliation.</p>
<p>Agree completely! And, we have parents worried about an 18 years olds ability to make a sandwich while away at college posting on these boards so how mature are they really is a very good question. The demand letter was arrogant and appalling.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Excellent point, but not sure it is even necessary to start at 18; voting is a legal issue, not an intellectual qualification. A 10 year-old has the right to speak up and disagree with adults, if he presents logical arguments. And if the arguments are sound, that 10 year-old would be deemed intellectually qualified, and possibly even called a genius. </p>
<p>However, I think the issue here is that there is a difference in critiquing and evaluating and in 1) how one does engage and critique and 2) the willingness or unwillingness to debate.</p>
<p>The arrogance issues I see are two-fold: 1) this asking for an apology instead of first asking for his explanation BEFOREHAND, then asking for the apology if they deemed his positions unsatisfactory. This apologize or get protested approach is short-sighted and heavy-handed. And 2) an arrogance that I am so right that I am unwilling to debate the issue at all. It is a “I know it all arrogance” that just comes off, as anti-intellectual and anti-critical thinking. </p>
<p>Their approach would not pass muster in an intro Philosophy 101 class, yet they are arrogant enough to think that they have the intellectual high ground. They failed the basic intellectual qualification of presenting sound arguments and willingness to hear the other side.</p>
<p>We all have opinions. What I am addressing is some of the heavy handed tactics and ill behavior that is being threatened and done. Those students could have done better letting Rice or other speakers come and then having a very high quality demonstration once they were there and said their piece. So you have speakers that give you no memories, no penache, all pablum or in Bowen’s case, a chastizement, Way to go for a nice commencement afternoon. Pure stupidity. I’m sure other places were happy to get those speakers. Who ended up speaking at Rutgers?</p>
<p><a href=“Inquirer.com: Philadelphia local news, sports, jobs, cars, homes”>Inquirer.com: Philadelphia local news, sports, jobs, cars, homes;
<p>“Former N.J. Gov. Thomas H. Kean, Rice’s replacement, urged graduates to embrace civility and resist the ideological bomb-throwing that has come to characterize public discourse.”</p>
<p>Tom Kean and Eric LeGrand as the student speaker.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Throughout history, “ideological bomb-throwing” has been easier than useful civil discourse. It is also usually seen as being more effective at convincing others (why do you think that political campaigns are mostly made of misleading sound bites rather than useful discourse?).</p>
<p>To clarify - That is quote from Tom Kean. It seems he also encourage the students to take it down a notch. The speech at Yale had similar sentiments this year delivered sarcastically. It’s becoming a thing.</p>