Moving Tassels Left

Accuracy in Academia ^ | June 7, 2015 | Malcolm A. Kline

[Academiadotorg]

The Young America’s Foundation has once again compiled an invaluable compendium of this season’s commencement speakers and found, once again, that they overwhelmingly represent one point of view.

Moreover, in our review of 127 of the arguably representative speakers they highlight, we note that one-third—41—have discernible political views. By the most expansive definition, one-third of these—10—can be called anything from apolitical to definitively conservative:

• Gen. Philip M. Breedlove at the Georgia Institute of Technology,

• Former President George W. Bush at Southern Methodist University

• Former Secretary of labor , Elaine Chao, retired Admiral Thad Allen, at Georgetown

• Former Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels at Purdue

• Former U. S. Representative Gabby Giffords and her husband former astronaut Mark Kelly at Cornell

• Chess champion and dissident Garry Kasparov at the University of St. Louis,

• Former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice at William and Mary,

• Poet and dissident Salman Rushdie at Emory

The others, whom our sister organization Accuracy in Media has covered extensively, all fall on the Left of the political spectrum. For example, graduates at Georgetown got to hear from UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, U. S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Georgia and Charlie Rose. Here’s the rest of the lecture circuit:

• Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright spoke at Tufts;

• Actor Alan Alda spoke at Carnegie Mellon;

• Former Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet spoke at the University of Denver;

• Vice President Joe Biden spoke at Yale;

• Charles Bolden of NASA spoke at the University of Pittsburgh;

• New York Times columnist David Brooks spoke at Dartmouth;

• Documentary filmmaker Ken Burns spoke at Washington University in St. Louis;

• Linguist and Left-wing activist Noam Chomsky spoke at Drexel;

• Self-described satirist Stephen Colbert spoke at Wake Forest;

• Apple CEO Tim Cook spoke at George Washington University;

• Katie Couric spoke at the University of Wisconsin;

• U. S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan spoke at the Georgia Institute of Technology;

• U. S. Rep. Donna Edwards spoke at UC-Santa Cruz;

• Richard Engel of NBC spoke at Stanford;

• UN Climate Chief Christiana Figueres spoke at the University of California at San Diego;

• Finance executive Mellody Hobson spoke at the University of Southern California;

• Author Walter Isaacson spoke at Vanderbilt as well as at Lehigh University;

• Former EPA administrator Lisa Jackson spoke at Princeton;

• Va. Gov. Terry McAuliffe spoke at UVA;

• Bill Nye “the science guy” spoke at Rutgers;

• Former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick spoke at Harvard;

• Former Ambassador Thomas Pickering spoke at Brandeis;

• Former Secretary of State Colin Powell spoke at Rice;

• UN Ambassador Samantha Power spoke at Penn;

• Former EPA administrator William Reilly spoke at American University;

• Amy Robach of Good Morning America spoke at the University of Georgia;

• Google’s Eric Schmidt spoke at Virginia Tech;

• Megan Smith, chief technology officer of the U.S. spoke at MIT;

• NPR’s Nina Totenberg spoke at the University of Vermont; and

• Meredith Vieira spoke at Boston University;

[henkster]

Former Governor Mitch Daniels gave a very good commencement speech at Purdue May 16 on the event of my son’s graduation. Daniels wasn’t a stretch for a speaker, since he is also President of the University. It was still a good speech, where he attacked political correctness and said free speech means you have the right to offend people, and people do not have the right to not be offended.

[Vigilanteman]

. . . free speech means you have the right to offend people, and people do not have the right to not be offended.

Tell that to any HR drone even in corporate America, let alone the world of government and quasi-government employment.

PC fascism remains intact where ever there are willing Junior Eichmanns to enforce it.

[kosciusko51]

Clearly, they were using the “most expansive definition”, because no sane definition would consider Gabby Giffords and her husband “apolitical to definitively conservative”.

[FoxInSocks]

we note that one-third—41—have discernible political views. By the most expansive definition, one-third of these—10—can be called anything from apolitical to definitively conservative

Ten is closer to one-fourth of 41. Just saying.

[Vigilanteman]

. . . no sane definition would consider Gabby Giffords and her husband “apolitical to definitively conservative”.

Compared to Noam Chomsky or Alan Alda, they are definitely “apolitical to definitively conservative”. ANd that seems to be the standard they are using here.

[kosciusko51]

I’m sorry, but people making a living out of attacking the Second Amendment are definitely not apolitical.

[Thunder90]

We’re talking what leftists would call “apolitical”. These same leftists see Obama and Hillary as mushy moderates.

[kosciusko51]

I thought this was an Accuracy in Academia article, not something from the NY or LA Times. I expected better from them.

[Vigilanteman]

Not in my book either. Ditto for the pantywaists who attack the first amendment by enforcing the dominant PC culture.

But they are being "graded on the curve" here because there are more venomous snakes in the mix.