Home > Professor Resigns in Protest of Condi Visit to Boston University

Professor Resigns in Protest of Condi Visit to Boston University

by Open-Publishing - Wednesday 17 May 2006
10 comments

School-University Governments USA

From BrickBurner.org

http://brickburner.blogs.com/my_web...

A letter to William P. Leahy, SJ, president of BU

Dear Father Leahy,

I am writing to resign my post as an adjunct professor of English at Boston College.

I am doing so — after five years at BC, and with tremendous regret — as a direct result of your decision to invite Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to be the commencement speaker at this year’s graduation.

Many members of the faculty and student body already have voiced their objection to the invitation, arguing that Rice’s actions as secretary of state are inconsistent with the broader humanistic values of the university and the Catholic and Jesuit traditions from which those values derive.

But I am not writing this letter simply because of an objection to the war against Iraq.

My concern is more fundamental. Simply put, Rice is a liar.

She has lied to the American people knowingly, repeatedly, often extravagantly over the past five years, in an effort to justify a pathologically misguided foreign policy.

The public record of her deceits is extensive. During the ramp-up to the Iraq war, she made 29 false or misleading public statements concerning Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and links to Al Qaeda, according to a congressional investigation by the House Committee on Government Reform.

To cite one example:

In an effort to build the case for war, then-National Security Adviser Rice repeatedly asserted that Iraq was pursuing a nuclear weapon, and specifically seeking uranium in Africa.

In July of 2003, after these claims were disproved, Rice said: ’’Now if there were doubts about the underlying intelligence . . . those doubts were not communicated to the president, the vice president, or to me."

Rice’s own deputy, Stephen Hadley, later admitted that the CIA had sent her a memo eight months earlier warning against the use of this claim.

In the three years since the war began, Rice has continued to misrepresent or simply ignore the truth about our deadly adventure in Iraq.

Like the president whom she serves so faithfully, she refuses to recognize her errors or the tragic consequences of those errors to the young soldiers and civilians dying in Iraq. She is a diplomat whose central allegiance is not to the democratic cause of this nation, but absolute power.

This is the woman to whom you will be bestowing an honorary degree, along with the privilege of addressing the graduating class of 2006.

It is this last notion I find most reprehensible: that Boston College would entrust to Rice the role of moral exemplar.

To be clear: I am not questioning her intellectual gifts or academic accomplishments.

Nor her potentially inspiring role as a powerful woman of color.

But these are not the factors by which a commencement speaker should be judged. It is the content of one’s character that matters here — the reverence for truth and knowledge that Boston College purports to champion.

Rice does not personify these values; she repudiates them. Whatever inspiring rhetoric she might present to the graduating class, her actions as a citizen and politician tell a different story.

Honestly, Father Leahy, what lessons do you expect her to impart to impressionable seniors?

That hard work in the corporate sector might gain them a spot on the board of Chevron? That they, too, might someday have an oil tanker named after them? That it is acceptable to lie to the American people for political gain?

Given the widespread objection to inviting Rice, I would like to think you will rescind the offer. But that is clearly not going to happen.

Like the administration in Washington, you appear too proud to admit to your mistake. Instead, you will mouth a bunch of platitudes, all of which boil down to: You don’t want to lose face.

In this sense, you leave me no choice.

I cannot, in good conscience, exhort my students to pursue truth and knowledge, then collect a paycheck from an institution that displays such flagrant disregard for both.

I would like to apologize to my students and prospective students. I would also urge them to investigate the words and actions of Rice, and to exercise their own First Amendment rights at her speech.

— Steve Almond

Forum posts

  • small acts of courage add up, and maybe someday soon the critical mass will be turned upside down by the thoughtful, compassionate, character-filled acts, like this professor at BU. May we all have the courage to act when opportunity taps us on the shoulder, may we all have the focus and vigilance to lead with our hearts.

  • Wonderful! To stand up for the righteous ways is a hard road to take. Too many of us stand by, sacrificing nothing. If we acted as the steel workers in Carnegies’ time, striking and shooting it out with the mercenary thugs he hired, we would have a society we could be proud of. We have all had our "spines" removed. Thank you for your courageous act.

  • Bravo, wonderful man, well done. He stands up, because he is intelligent enough not to join the vast crowd of Americans, who are according to the Nuremberg pattern are A L L guilty!

  • BUH-bye.

    Did anyone notice if the door hit him in the ass?

    • ...we know you are guilty and in support of American war crimes.

      Cowards like babies to be killed? Right! Wait until your wonderful coward forces have to meet with real soldiers! Americans still think they won the Second World War. But it is not true!

    • To: 24.226: When are you going to say BUH-BYE to this website, fascist lover?
      Why don’t you run back to Boortz.com? Got tired of arguing with morons? But, hey, morons do what morons want, right?

    • I applied to take the job that this lunatic quit, protesting one of the most qualified and effective Secretaries of State we have had in years. However, since I am actually qualified to teach as a professor, I probably will not be offered the post. Anyway, I am in the process of going to Iraq "to do the patricotic jobs that faux Americans won’t do," so I would not be able to take the position immediately anyway.

      Also, my father spent two years at Stalag Luft III winning WWII, which was the result of appeasement, and was only sorry he could not drop more bombs to end it earlier and save more lives in the long run.

      Professor C. Alan Hopewell, Ph.D.

    • Well, actually it was US forces almost exclusively that fought and won the war on the Pacific front, and the history of those campaigns from Guadacanal to Iwo Jima and the sea battles that decimated the Japanese fleet is quite well known.

      In terms of Europe, it is true that most of the Germans who died were killed on the Eastern front, and that British and Canadian troops played major parts in the European theatre. However, the massive amount of supplies provided to the Russians by the US were an integral part of their war machine. The US did not conquer Germany by itself, but it did swing the balance of power in the war.

      All that aside, anyone who terms the US military as "coward forces" is clearly in some form of emotional denial, and has abandoned reason. I just attended two reunions of Marine veterans of Viet Nam, and all of those men faced and overcame more than any civilian at his keyboard will ever understand, and their young brothers in Iraq and Afghanistan today have the same spirit.

      Those who hate and despise this society enough to say such things should perhaps move their lives to where they will find less stress.

  • Bravo to this professor and to his integrity. Academia is about the search for truth through honest intellectual discourse. Bringing in Condoleezza Rice to speak to this year’s graduation is an affront to BU’s reputation as a centre of intellectual learning and its mandate to pursue greater understanding of the truth through the arts and sciences. In addition, this invitation flies in the face of Catholic Social Teaching which is opposed to illegal war in all its forms. Perhaps if enough people raise their voices about this, BU and Rice will find a diplomatic way out of this fiasco. More than likely, this visit is tied to promises of continued favour by wealthy university funders, like the Rockefeller Foundation. However, what good is money once you’ve sold your soul?