Across the country, colleges are holding graduation
ceremonies for hundreds of thousands of graduates. But what used to be called
the graduation season is rapidly gaining a new name: commencement speaker cancellation
season.
This year in particular there seems to be a large number of
high profile commencement speakers who have backed out or have been disinvited
after campus protests. Former Bush II Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was
forced out as Rutgers’ commencement speaker. International Monetary Fund (IMF) chief
Christine Lagarde withdrew from speaking at Smith College after protests. Former University of California-Berkeley
Chancellor, Robert J.
Birgeneau, withdrew from speaking at Haverford after protesters wanted him to
apologize for having campus police use batons against Occupy protesters. Brandeis University reversed its decision to
award Islamic feminist Ayaan Hirsi Ali an honorary degree, after previously
announcing it would do so, after protests by right-wing Moslems over her
criticism of their religion. Even Michelle Obama changed her mind about
going to a Kansas high school graduation after right-wingers protested.
In three of these
cases, progressive protesters forced out conservative speakers. In the two
other examples, religious radicals forced out moderates who they mistakenly
labeled as extremists.
Taken together,
these commencement speaker cancellations involve a series of laudable and
not-so-laudable actions. In all
examples, we should admire the protesters for exercising their right to make
their opinions known.
But we should be
disappointed in and ashamed of the institutions and the prominent individuals
who backed down. Protests would have made for messy commencements, which are
usually drawn out affairs that involve a lot of sophisticated choreography to
move thousands of graduates on to and off the stage in a short amount of time.
But so what, life is messy and democracy is messy. By backing down or backing out, the
individuals and institutions demonstrated a lack of respect for public
discourse.
While we can admire
organizations such as the New York Public Library that back down when it turns
out their plans are not in the public’s best interests, giving a speaker a
platform is never an occasion for backing down. Instead, the institutions could
expand the venue—for example, getting another speaker to balance the
controversial speaker or creating a special forum to discuss the controversies
during commencement week. The colleges
could even give the protesters 10 minutes at the ceremonies to make their
points.
To the degree that
the speakers themselves made the decision to withdraw, they should be ashamed
of themselves. They took the actions that made them controversial. They should
own what they did or repudiate it. They should not run away from a spotlight
that they themselves created.
For some of the
educational institutions in question, backing down from the original plan marks
their second mistake. Their first was to invite the speaker in the first place.
Let’s start with
Birgeneau: To invite an obscure university administrator known for one action
only is an open endorsement of that action. Haverford officials were stating
that they thought it was right to beat up peaceful Occupy protesters. No wonder
faculty and staff mobilized against the decision to ask Birgeneau to speak.
The case of
Condoleezza is also easy: Commencement speakers are supposed to send graduates
off on the journey that will be the rest of their lives with hopeful advice
that spurs their enthusiasms and aspirations. The commencement speaker thus
carries a certain moral authority. How
can anyone who was associated with the decision to create a world-wide network
of torture facilities be considered a moral authority? Rice, Cheney, Bush II, Rumsfeld,
John Yoo, David Addington and anyone else who was involved in deciding to
pursue torture as an instrument of war should be American pariahs. No
university invited Joseph McCarthy or Roy Cohn to speak after their disgrace
and none should invite these international criminals, either.
Some would argue
that Christine Lagarde is also a war criminal by virtue of her activities as
head of the IMF. I would agree that many IMF actions have hurt people while
protecting the interests of banks. It’s a political argument between left and
right. Lagarde’s politics do not in and
of themselves forfeit her the moral right to be a commencement speaker, as the
actions of Condoleezza Rice and Robert Birgeneau do.
The case of Brandeis
University is the trickiest. On the surface, there is nothing morally objectionable
in Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s actions and statements. She has fought for years against
female genital mutilation and formed an organization, the AHA
Foundation, whose mission is to work “to
protect and reinforce the basic rights and freedoms of women and girls,
including security and control of their own bodies, access to an education, the
ability to work outside the home and control their own income, freedom of
expression and association, and the myriad other basic civil rights defined
under the laws of Western democracies and the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights.” The fact that she is a fellow of the ultra-conservative American
Enterprise Institute is troubling, but I can see why any mainstream
organization would want to demonstrate its commitment to human rights by
awarding Ali an honorary degree.
Except that Brandeis is not any mainstream organization. It
is a Jewish organization giving an award to a woman who is disrupting Islam.
Yes, we should support her disruptions, just as we support the disruptions that
pro-choice and supporters of LGBT marriage make to the Christian and Catholic
religious institutions and belief. But
when Brandeis does it, it carries stark and obvious symbolism, because it’s as
if a Jewish organization is taunting Islamists, purposely getting their
goat. It plays into the myths that many
right-wing Moslems have about Jews.
Someone—actually a lot of people—at Brandeis must have known
that giving an honorary degree to Ali would piss off the Islamic right wing,
which makes the withdrawal of the degree particularly obnoxious and cowardly.
If you are going to stir the pot, don’t wimp out, which is what Brandeis has
done.
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