#Tolerance: Condi Rice withdraws from Rutgers commencement address after protests

Tolerance
Yep.

Sad to say but it looks like campus fascists Β have won out:

Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has decided against delivering the commencement address at Rutgers University following protests by some faculty and students over her role in the Iraq War.

Rice said in a statement Saturday that she informed Rutgers President Robert Barchi that she was declining the invitation.

“Commencement should be a time of joyous celebration for the graduates and their families,” Rice said. “Rutgers’ invitation to me to speak has become a distraction for the university community at this very special time.”

[…]

But some students and faculty had protested, staging sit-ins and saying Rice bore some responsibility for the Iraq War as a member of the Bush administration. Barchi and other school leaders had resisted the calls to disinvite Rice, saying the university welcomes open discourse on controversial topics.

In her statement, Rice defended her record, saying that she was honored to serve her country and that she had “defended America’s belief in free speech and the exchange of ideas.” But she said she didn’t want to detract from the spirit of the commencement ceremony.

Even the university’s president, who had at one time stood strong against the opposition, seemed to throw in the towel recently over the controversy:

In a statement when the controversy first erupted, Rutgers President Robert Barchi said, β€œWe cannot protect free speech or academic freedom by denying others the right to an opposing view, or by excluding those with whom we may disagree. Free speech and academic freedom cannot be determined by any group. They cannot insist on consensus or popularity.”

Barchi had adopted a different tone this week: β€œI frankly wish from my point of view that this whole affair was not here right now because it’s distracting from what great things we’re doing as a university. … It does have us, for better or worse, right in the crosshairs right now.”

No longer.

As always, Ms. Rice was a complete class act in her statement – while the self-important nitwits at the university who militantly protested her over simple political disagreement put the “a**” in classy. Β Chalk up Rutgers as being one more in a long list of “institutions of higher learning” where liberal talk of respecting and welcoming a “diversity of viewpoints” is little more than a meaningless, empty slogan. Β Wusses.

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