Condoleezza Rice is out as Rutgers commencement speaker.
The selection of Rice, the former secretary of state and national security adviser under President George W. Bush, triggered student and faculty protests because of her role in taking the nation into the war in Iraq.
Rice announced her decision in a letter to Rutgers President Robert Barchi, according to NJ.com.
“Commencement should be a time of joyous celebration for the graduates and their families. Rutgers’ invitation to me to speak has become a distraction for the university community at this very special time,” Rice said.
“I am honored to have served my country. I have defended America’s belief in free speech and the exchange of ideas. These values are essential to the health of our democracy. But that is not what is at issue here,” she said. “As a Professor for thirty years at Stanford University and as (its) former Provost and Chief academic officer, I understand and embrace the purpose of the commencement ceremony and I am simply unwilling to detract from it in any way.”
Read Rice’s statement carefully. To her credit, her decision was based on what she believes is the best interests of this year’s graduates. Her presence had become a distraction, due mostly to her own history and its connection to the disastrous and likely criminal war in Iraq. The students and faculty did what students and faculty should do — raise their voices and protest when they are faced with what they perceive to be an injustice. The administration, for its part, rightly defended its invitation (the discussion of an honorary degree is another matter completely) and made it clear that disinviting Rice would have violated the tenets of academic freedom and open inquiry
Students and faculty are going to come in for some criticism now that Rice has pulled out — already, I am seeing people damning students for protesting Rice more loudly and forcefully than they protested Snooky. This is absurd. Snooky was making a (very expensive) speech, but not speaking at commencement. And she is a trivial presence. Rice, on the other hand, is tied inextricably to the Iraq War and the Bush foreign policy. Her actions in the past and her presence at graduation were far more consequential than Snooky’s speech. That is why Rice triggered such an emotional response.
The debate over whether Rice should have been invited was a legitimate one. The arguments against her were good arguments made by committed and focused students and faculty. Political protest is important to the way our democracy is supposed to work. The students and faculty who engaged in a variety of protests should be praised for their commitment and their willingness to engage in direct action. They should not be dismissed or denigrated.
At the same time, those who defended Rutgers’ right to invite her and the administration’s decision to not rescind the invitation also had right on their side. The administration’s argument — voiced by Barchi — that free speech and academic freedom cannot be protected “by denying others the right to an opposing view, or by excluding those with whom we may disagree” also should not be taken lightly.
This, ultimately, was a debate pitting important principles against each other — the right to hold people accountable (Rice in this case) and to make one’s political positions known (students and faculty), on the one side, and the right for Rice to speak, on the other.
In the end, someone was going to lose this debate. Rice made the decision herself after an unruly process played out. This is how politics is supposed to work.
My own take from the beginning was that Rice was an appropriate commencement speaker, given her resume and the history of such speakers. When I graduated from Rutgers College in 1988, the speaker was Pete Dawkins, a decorated soldier and former Heisman Trophy winner. Dawkins resume made him seem the perfect person to send a graduating class into the future, but his candidacy for U.S. Senate that year should have sent a red flag to the administration. He spoke, made his election pitch and put the 2,000-plus students watching on a hot afternoon from the mall in front of Murray Hall to sleep.
Rice is (like Dawkins 26 years ago) the prototypical commencement speaker — a big name who gets paid big money to talk to students, but who carries a lot of baggage, someone who has an agenda, someone with little connection to the graduates.
The goal of a commencement speech is inspiration, but the reality is far messier. It is about prestige for the schools and money for the speakers. And all the graduates want to do is toss their caps in the air.
In the wake of the Rice controversy, maybe it’s time we reconsider the entire tradition of the commencement speaker and ask ourselves whether it has outlived its usefulness.
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Hank Kalet 