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Post |
| Kali Prasad |
Posted
on 22-May-01 09:26 PM
Many Professors Stay Home as Yale U. Honors President Bush at Commencement
By JENNIFER JACOBSON
More than 200 professors boycotted Yale University's commencement exercises on Monday to protest the institution's decision to award an honorary degree to President Bush.
A statement signed by 208 Yale professors said, "There is nothing about his performance thus far which merits the decisive accolade."
Peter Brooks, a professor of comparative literature and French, and one of the statement's three authors, said the protest was not aimed at the political world but at Yale's president, Richard C. Levin, and its Board of Trustees, who chose President Bush for the honor.
That choice, Mr. Brooks said, was "inappropriate" and not representative "of the ideals we think the university stands for -- intellectual excellence and service to humanity." Honoring Mr. Bush, he said, is "premature at best."
Bruce Ackerman, a professor of law and political science, said the decision to grant the award to President Bush breaks with past practice regarding sitting presidents who are Yale alumni. Mr. Bush's father, President George Bush, received an honorary degree in 1991, three years into his term and following his roles as vice president and as director of the Central Intelligence Agency. President Bill Clinton, Mr. Ackerman said, never received an honorary degree. Mr. Ackerman said that Monday's recognition of President Bush amounted to a "special favor."
President Bush has been widely reported to have been angered, during his father's presidency, about how long it took Yale to honor the elder Mr. Bush. Yale has reached out to George W. Bush, not only with the degree, but with advertisements in The Washington Post and the International Herald Tribune congratulating him on his election.
University officials disagreed with the criticism about Monday's honor. "Yale is proud of its record in educating leaders, and it would be natural to recognize the election of one of our graduates to president of the United States during our tercentennial year," said a statement from Helaine Klasky, a university spokeswoman. "The selection of a political figure often engenders debate. Vigorous expression of diverse viewpoints is part of the life of the university."
President Bush, who graduated from Yale in 1968, faced protest not only from faculty members but from students as well. Abbey Hudson, a sophomore, was one of hundreds of students holding signs that said "Don't Turn Your Back on the Environment; Make Yale Proud," "Workers' Rights are Human Rights; Make Yale Proud," and "Protect Gay Rights; Make Yale Proud," among others.
As for President Bush, he entertained graduates with self-deprecating remarks throughout his speech: "To those of you who received honors, awards, and distinctions, I say, well done. And to the C students, I say, you, too, can be president of the United States."
Ending on a more serious note, he encouraged graduates to share their "unique gifts," and reminded them that "public service is one way -- an honorable way -- to mark your life with meaning."
Ms. Hudson acknowledged the humor in President Bush's speech. "It's not that the people holding the signs dislike the man," she said. "It's just his policies."
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| ashu |
Posted
on 22-May-01 11:49 PM
As it is, it's a tragedy that the leader of the free world
is a Yale man.
It's all the more tragic when Yale University rushes out
to give out an honorary degree like this -- to an untested
neta.
May our Lord Pashupati Nath give "buddhi" to
Yale University.
oohi
ashu
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| Kali Prasad |
Posted
on 23-May-01 05:44 PM
I agree. What a rush by Yale!!
Since Jefford (R-VT) is leaving the Grand ole party, Yale may consider withdrawing the honorary degree given to W.
Ain't gonna happen but I wish Yale does that.
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| ashu |
Posted
on 24-May-01 12:12 AM
Leave it to NYT's Maureen Dowd to tell it like it is.
oohi
ashu
*****************************************
May 23, 2001
From A to Y at Yale
By MAUREEN DOWD
NEW HAVEN — The driven hippie chick came back to Yale, with straight blond hair instead of frizzy brown, and pumps instead of sandals. But she was still earnestly preaching 60's feminism and activism.
"Dare to care," Hillary Rodham Clinton (law '73) told the graduating seniors, observing that when she graduated from high school, Yale did not yet accept women. "We might have had A averages but we lacked a Y chromosome," she said.
The woman who backed up a truck to the White House to haul away appurtenances to furnish her two mansions even warned that "our prodigious consumerism" might "weaken our vision."
The drifting frat boy came back to Yale, a sober workout fanatic instead of a hard-partying prankster. But he was still acting like the genial toastmaster at a 50's Dean Martin roast.
"I'm sure that each of you will make your own journey back at least a few times in your life," George W. Bush, class of '68, told the class of '01. "If you're like me, you won't remember everything you did here. That can be a good thing."
Speaking of his old classmate Dick Brodhead, the dean of Yale, the president dryly noted that they had both put in a lot of time on the library's leather couches: "We had a mutual understanding — Dick wouldn't read aloud, and I wouldn't snore."
He seemed nostalgic (if confused) about the keg-tapping, DKE-pledge- hanger-branding days before coeducation. "In my time, they spoke of the Yale man," he said. "I was never really sure what that was."
W. and Hillary took radically different paths. She clutched her husband's coattails, he clutched his father's. She ran on Yale, he ran from it. She survived being a scary West Wing know-it-all, he thrives on being a scary West Wing know-nothing. She grabbed policy and power, before they were hers to grab. He sloughs them off, after they're his to wield.
They came back one day apart, as a senator and a president. The yin and yang of Yale have become the yin and yang of national politics, both still the avatars of opposite ends of 60's culture, each setting a course based on the other's weaknesses.
W. reclaimed the White House for Team Bush by running against the slippery ethical and moral standards of Bill and Hillary. Now Hillary would like to reclaim the White House for Team Clinton by running against the retro paternalism and bristling conservatism of Bush II.
At Yale, she agreed with Bush protesters screaming "Oh no, Al's ahead, better call my brother Jeb," and wearing pink stickers on their black gowns that read, "5-4," that President Bush's election was illegitimate. Reminiscing about how she worked on the State Senate campaign of a young Joe Lieberman, she said sardonically, "Not only was he elected, he actually got to serve."
By having such a Y-chromosome cast to his administration, W. is giving fresh oxygen to Hillary, who began her Senate career looking greedy and tainted.
Now Senator Clinton can make the case that W. is endangering the environment and women's rights and even some of her husband's foreign affairs accomplishments with his cold-war attitude.
The return to Yale should have been a triumph for the president, as he put aside old irritations against the school's intellectual elitism.
His self-deprecating speech about his C-student days — "everything I know about the spoken word, I learned right here at Yale" — charmed some of the students who were hooting insults in the crowd.
But he seemed no more comprehending about the protests he had inspired at Yale — students with signs that said "Kill the death penalty," women holding up signs in favor of reproductive rights, students wearing stickers that said "Got arsenic?" and "Bush-Cheney: Fossil Fools" — than he did about the turmoil when he was a student there.
In the late 60's, avoiding the Beatles' psychedelic phase, W. appeared more interested in the problems of Texas oil men and the secret meetings of Skull & Bones than in the agitation over Vietnam and civil rights.
He seemed like a throwback. Three decades later, Hillary is itching to prove that he still is — Eisenhower with hair.
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