Tufts University Senior Has Leadership Award PULLED After Vulgar Gesture in Anti-War Protest

Boston Globe (NYT Subsidiary) ^ | 3/22/2003 | Patrick Healy

[CaptIsaacDavis]

QUOTE/EXCERPT: "Tufts University alumni leaders have revoked an award given to a senior because of her ''inappropriate and offensive'' behavior during a recent campus protest of former President George H.W. Bush...The nonmonetary award is given for academic achievement and ''potential for leadership.''

[CaptIsaacDavis]

Tufts University is an interesting place. The alumni are definitely NOT overwhelmingly Liberal (the school graduated some unusually -- vs. other universities in the region -- conservative classes on average in the 1980s by the way), while politics on campus reflect the fact that it combines leftist also rans unable to get into Ivy league schools (but who want to go to an "elite" school in Boston), with very competitive and bright local kids who get screened out from Harvard and Brown for being, well, local and normal (and exceeding the quota for kids from NE states, or for coming from "bourgeois" prep schools, or for not being into this or that progressive activism in high school to pad resumes. It is, for lack of a better phrase, New England's Ivy League school (where the modern Ivy League schools have very internationally diverse student populations these days).

Conservatives should know more about Tufts, because it is the ONLY university in the past 15 years to have seen a Leftist campus speech code overturned through a student protest movement without having to resort to lawyers or the courts (1989). That "free speech" campaign was led by the conservative student paper, The Primary Source (support them!), and backed by some Fletcher school graduate students. They won NOT by focusing on a first amendment argument, which would have taken them into the courts, but by aggressively propagandizing, including through a late-night stunt of roping off the campus with flyers, that the administration was creating a "Concentration Campus" [Soviet and German style] -- in a campaign intended to go over the head of the extreme leftist dean of students and strike at the heart of the former dean, Jean Meyer, who was a resistance fighter against the Nazis in WW2, in France no less). Boston lawyer Harvey Silverglate wrote about the trend in the Shadow University (and did a poor job of researching and describing the uniquely successful struggle at Tufts), which revealed that since the Orwellian assault on our culture through "hate crime" and "speech code" regulations/laws started in the mid-1980s, a mere 5 (from my latest count) universities have rolled them back (mostly under legal coercion).

The reason Bush was even on campus is that the most conservative elite faculty anywhere in the United States is at the Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy at Tufts, which has a former NATO Supreme Commander as a dean and sits prominently right in the middle of the campus (ex-Pres. Bush was giving a lecture there).

[Dutchgirl]

On the one hand...YEAH!!, alumni able to influence this decision, alumni shamed by inappropriate behavior...and on the other hand- U of F has invited Slick Willie to Gainesville and I want to see inappropriate behavior over their decision to spend $80k of student money to hear the prevaricator in chief.

[SandRat]

Tufts University alumni leaders have revoked an award given to a senior because of her ''inappropriate and offensive'' behavior during a recent campus protest of former President George H.W. Bush.

Now if we could just get more alumni from other universities to behave likewise.....

[an amused spectator]

A women's studies and peace and justice double-major with an A-minus average...

Just another chirping little bird who is simply not ready for the adult world. ;-)

[Thebaddog]

How on earth did that person get only an A- average in those majors. All you have to do is show up and tell the teacher what she wants to hear and you've got your A. The kid must have missed a class or twelve.

[S.O.L.]

Wow! I wish I had known or remembered this. When my oldest son was scouting colleges four years ago we visited Tufts and were turned off by the left wing propaganda posted all over the campus. Based on that we discouraged our youngest son from even bothering to visit Tufts even though their double degree program with the New England Consevatory would have been a good fit for his musical talents.

[429CJ]

"A women's studies and peace and justice double-major with an A-minus average,"

I wonder how much demand there is for 'women's studies' or 'peace and justice' mojors?

[LibertarianInExile]

What, are you crazy? The tartar sauce producers of America are way short on women's studies majors to inspect their products as complement to its standard entree. And there's always a shortage in the flat Italian foods delivery services field that can only be filled by a crackerjack peace and justice specialist. I mean, we have way too many engineers, accountants, and doctors. If it isn't obvious that her majors were filling a vital need in our American economy, nay, serving a crucial niche in our WAY OF LIFE, then you, my friend, have just been completely out of the loop.

In fact, where are you that you could miss the complete and utter necessity that has become the peace and justice/women's studies major? They are all things to all industries, indeed, they are the jack-of-all-trades in the new economy. Frankly, they are simply indispensible in every business and line of work that serves or deals with humanity.

You should be mortified for being so out of touch with the needs of the modern world. SHAME, shame.

[cardinal4]

Is U of F a state school? I dont know, but if it is, state tax money will be used to pay the sinkmeister....

[Dutchgirl]

Yes, it is a state school. The University has a budget for student events collected from student fees, that it usually spends on things like homecoming, concerts etc.

[=Intervention=]

U of F, or more accurately, FU, is a state school in every sense of the word. You're much better off going to UCF, if you ask me.

[pittsburgh gop guy]

Yeah - just what the hell kind of job do people that double-major in women's studies and peace and justice studies get?

I sure as heck don't know!

[an amused spectator]

Yeah - just what the hell kind of job do people that double-major in women's studies and peace and justice studies get?

Replacement facing on the leading edge of a bulldozer blade? ;-)

[cardinal4]

I suppose its indactive of the student body's leanings that they will allow the money ($80,000!!!) to be spent on listening to an impeached president blame america for 9/11 and to claim Iraq doesnt have any WMD........../sigh

[zip]

My wife and I are still ROTFLOAO. Thanks for the creative write up. (truth through humor is always good)

[an amused spectator]

Liz "Chirping Bird" Monnin is quite the little activist at Tufts.

[LibertarianInExile]

I was there the last time Slick showed up. I protested him with a buddy and randomly hung out with another protestor, a guy in a duck suit. The duck guy was carrying a massive sign that said 'Draft dodging duck.' I was carrying two signs that had the Clinton-Gore For President on one side (of course, they had conveniently been corrected to show the appropriate flag in the background--the USSR's) and one with "Real American Men Prefer BUSH!" and the other with "Communists for Clinton!" on the back.

YAF were hanging anti-Clinton banners everywhere. It was great.

Gore was there, too--and he laughed at the signs, showing the man actually has some sense of humor. AND his daughters were hot. Hillary gave us the evil eye.

Plus, in the stands, less than 70 feet behind and directly in camera shot behind the podium Clinton was speaking from, a group of YR's managed to infiltrate the Democrap dignitaries and wave Bush signs, while occasionally hollering "4 more years!" during the jackass's speech. The Clinton crowd was going NUTS over it--it was hilarious.

One of those moments that makes you glad you skipped class.

Where is the liar in chief gonna speak? O'Connell? Or on the Reitz grounds? My freeping advice would be different depending on your venue. :)

[LibertarianInExile]

No, it's coming from the STUDENTS. Student fees pay for speakers at UF.

But that's all the students' fault. They vote in the jackasses that appoint the dumbasses that do programming. I'm pretty sure the left has a strategy that puts student speaker programming VERY high on the list. Conservative student groups should strongly prioritize changing this.

[LibertarianInExile]

One does what one can. It's easy when fact is funnier than fiction. LOL.

Thanks!

[cardinal4]

I heard, but cant confirm, that Syracuse U will have the impeached one as its commencement speaker.