“There are many people more admirable that we could have invited to speak,” said Religion Professor David Rutledge.
He wasn’t complaining about a gangsta rapper or a head of a rogue state, but President George W. Bush, who is scheduled to speak at Saturday evening’s graduation ceremony at Furman University in Greenville, SC.
Shortly after Gov. Mark Sanford (R-SC), a Furman alumnus, helped arrange the presidential visit, Rutledge and more than 200 other professors and students signed a letter in protest of Bush Administration policies.
No one disputes their right to free speech. However, Business Professor Tom Smythe claims the protest is symptomatic of a double standard on campus, where politically-conservative speakers face more scrutiny than those on the left.
Click on the video for a sampling of opinion on campus:
“The notion of tolerance, as espoused by a wide variety of University professors, only seems to apply when those views are represented by what are considered the liberal political spectrum,” Smythe said.
Professor Rutledge admits academics have their political biases, but claims the Bush Administration “has gone so far over the line” with its handling of civil liberties and the war in Iraq, that the protest goes beyond a simple disagreement over policy.
“It’s become for many faculty a kind of moral statement rather than simply a political matter,” he said.
But graduating senior Christina Henderson said the protests run the risk of turning, what should be, a celebration for the senior class into a political event. Henderson, a Democrat who worked on Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, urged students and faculty to show respect for the first sitting U.S. president to visit Furman.
“Regardless of who he is or what his procedures and policies have been, he’s still the president of the United States,” she said.
University administrators said they want to be gracious hosts for the president, but are also committed to being impartial facilitators of discussion and debate on campus.
The University’s website has published both the letter protesting the president’s visit and a conservative student group’s response, which was signed by more than 500 members of the Furman community.
Debate has remained civil on this polite Southern campus. And some who signed the letter of objection said they’re ready to take their seats and listen to what President Bush has to say.
“I personally wouldn’t be in favor of any disruptive sort of protest during the ceremony,” said Pete DeMarco, a graduating senior who signed the letter of objection. “I think there’s ample opportunity to do that before the ceremony itself.”
