OSU Graduation This post at the Democratic Underground purports to detail instructions given to the graduates about their behavior during the commencement address given by President Bush.
The story goes that the Graduating class was warned that if they carried out a planned protest by standing and facing away from the President while he was speaking, they would be arrested, and their diplomas withheld. This action is not without precedent at OSU as this article shows, but finding any corroboration for this incident has been difficult.
In trying to find any documentation from a reliable source about this claim, I came across this article (reg req) from the OSU paper, documenting protests outside the stadium, which were allowed to continue witout molestation. Also from The Lantern comes this report on the speech:
There were few disruptions during Bush's speech despite efforts from protesters who urged graduates and guests to "turn your backs on Bush." Three graduates and six audience members — one draped in a Palestinian flag — actually did turn their backs but were hardly noticed by the crowd of about 60,000.
A further search found this site, where the protest, such as it was, was organized. The site has a link for people to post their personal accounts of the graduation. There is a grand total of 2 entries, one from a student, and one from the fellow who posted the account on DU, Jeff, AKA the Angry White Democrat. As the graduates who turned her back on Bush admitted, she was not harrasses, nor arrested, and she did get her diploma. Even Jeff was not arrested, although he also admitted to heckling during the President's introduction
When I first read this post, I couldn't believe my eyes. Now that I've researched it a little bit, I can see my skepticism was well founded, and my anger has shifted to the fools propagating this non event. You don't go around making up stuff like this. If there had been true repression of free speech, then outrage is the appropriate response BUT:
This is not repression folks, and the furor being raised over at DU and other lefty locales merely confirms their fringe status. Freedom of assembly and freedom of speech does not give you the right to co-opt a public function in order to espouse your views. The other graduates, their families and friends, have rights as well. Unfortunately, most extremists think that their cause gives their rights precedence over anybody else's, which leads to such disruptive acts as shouting down guest lecturers to prevent them from speaking, or staging political protests at graduation ceremonies. Then when they are appropriately spanked like the spoiled brats they ape, they whine about 'repression,' and and cry about 'jack-booted thugs.'
The wonderful truth is that, living in America, they don't have the first idea what true repression is. They don't have to fear the midnight knock on the door, or the fear that they may disappear, becoming an 'unperson.' Newspaper offices are not burned out if they write an editorial criticizing the government, although supporting the government has been known to result in entire print runs being vandalized on some college campuses. There are reasonable controls placed where individual rights come into conflict, and those controls do not equal repression.
With everything that is going on, and the legitimate concerns over the erosion of certain Constitutional rights, I'm surprised that the left is getting itself into such a lather over this.
Posted by Rich at June 17, 2002 1:30 AM