Bill O'Reilly - Commencement has become a decidedly liberal affair

[lovedforaday]

Once again, graduation time is upon us, and a new study by the Los Angeles Times says plenty about the state of higher education in America. The paper looked at the invited commencement speakers for 150 colleges and universities.

There are just four conservative speakers, as opposed to at least 69 liberal ones.Cory Book, the mayor of Newark, N.J

Comments

[golden_bastet]

The goal of higher education should be to champion the airing of all honest viewpoints. Nothing less is acceptable.

I don't quite see where they *aren't* doing that, Bill...
(And I went to a couple of fancy schools; there were plenty of conservatives quite freely expressing their conservatism.)

[kittenmommy]

There is no shortage of intellect [...] on the right.

Yes, and the Earth was created by God in seven days. Uh huh.

[lovedforaday]

The tide come in, the tide come out. You can't argue with that.

[kittenmommy]

I'm just amazed that Noah was able to build an ark that could hold two of every living thing on Earth! I doubt engineers today could manage a feat like that!

[chantalzola]

There are liberals who are religious. There are plenty of reasons to mock people like bill o'reilly, but when you put it like that, you're making it seem like only conservatives believe that, when plenty of liberals are Christians as well.

[that_which]

Cory Booker is not a particularly liberal liberal, or all that interested in supporting his base over his donors.

If it caused trouble for the wingnuts, awesome.

[wrestlingdog]

[chantalzola]

I'm confused though, why would BU staff boycott the Alexa event? I mean I wouldn't be proud of BU for that. Maybe I'm misreading this or missing something, but why would anyone boycott a fundraiser for someone who was a victim of sexual abuse/rape trying to raise money for other sexual abuse victims? I live in the boston area and had never heard of this Alexa thing before, but I've only been living here for about 4 years.

[wrestlingdog]

Oh, fuck, I misread it. I'm really embarrassed now.

[chantalzola]

Don't be embarrassed. I don't know if you misread it. This whole thing is worded poorly and is confusing.

[silver_apples]

I couldn't find much about the Boston fundraiser, but there are articles from 2009 pointing out that maybe a man who said a woman who was raped and murdered was a moron who was asking for it was a poor choice of speaker for a rape victim support group. I suspect those people boycotting him in Boston felt the same.

[chantalzola]

This is misleading. I couldn't tell why they were boycotting the Alexa thing (he doesn't say) and found it awfully shitty for the BU people to boycott an event for a rape victim trying to help other sexual abuse/rape victims. So was it because of the speaker? I couldn't even tell if he meant he himself was the speaker? I still find that a shitty thing to boycott.

[chantalzola]

By this, I meant the article, not you. My apologies!

[silver_apples]

He was the speaker in Boston. All I could find about that were a couple of announcements about the event, so any movement to boycott was kept low-key and offline. There was a fuss about him speaking for the organization in 2009 though, and it was brought up again in 2010, so it's not like it's a brand new controversy.

I don't think it's wrong to boycott an event when they've chosen a speaker who has publicly undermined the cause in the past, and never apologized or even considered he may have been wrong. Also, this was a $50-a-plate dinner, not an open forum, so maybe some of those "far-left professors and administrators" were busy and/or short on cash.