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This story has a very troubling start, but a pretty satisfying conclusion -- if it really is the conclusion. Among the contemptible episodes of student/faculty heckler's vetoes at commencement ceremonies this year (Condoleezza Rice, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Christine Lagarde and others have been disinvited from leading universities following ignorant and aggressively intolerant protests), one of the most disturbing concerned the treatment of Robert Birgeneau by Haverford College. Birgeneau is the recently retired chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley. You don't get to be chancellor of Berkeley if you've got the political opinions of, say, Mitch McConnell, and Birgeneau is...

In his lone commencement address of the year, former Florida governor Jeb Bush urged students at a Christian liberal arts college Saturday to reaffirm their socially conservative values, a sign that he is underscoring his own as he considers running in the 2016 Republican presidential primaries. “Remain true to your convictions and your faith,” Bush said, speaking at Grove City College in northwestern Pennsylvania. “This may seem a little challenging today, where we have a federal government that is willingly violating the religious freedom of its citizens. But we don’t have to accept it.” Dropping a possible hint about his...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)NEW HOPE, AL (WAFF) - Former Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin visited Huntsville on Wednesday to speak at a graduation ceremony. Palin was asked to be the keynote speaker for New Hope High School's commencement ceremony. Tickets to her speech were available to the general public, but these tickets were soon no longer available. In a statement, the school system said New Hope High School would provide adequate tickets to graduates and their family and friends, as well as to the community. Despite there being no tickets available through official channels, it has not stopped some folks from trying to...

Haverford College on Tuesday joined a growing list of schools to lose commencement speakers to protests from the left, when Robert J. Birgeneau, a former chancellor at the University of California, Berkeley, withdrew from this weekend’s event. Some students and faculty members at Haverford, a liberal arts college near Philadelphia, objected to the invitation to Mr. Birgeneau to speak and receive an honorary degree because, under him, the University of California police used batons to break up an Occupy protest in 2011. He first stated his support for the police, and then a few days later, saying that he was...

Ted Cruz gives an inspirational Commencement address at Stephen F. Austin State University.

Col. Allen West addresses The King's College 2013 graduating class. Through stories of his own life in military service and governement, and historical recounts of the Cold War, and other challenging eras in America's history, Col. West urges the graduates to be great leaders with courage and conviction to help lead America into a bright future. CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO...

Former Alaska governor and Republican firebrand Sarah Palin brought a gift and a surprise for residents of this town of 1,100 who crowded the high school gym to celebrate its graduation Saturday afternoon. Grads found the gift taped under their chairs onstage: a dollar bill. The currency taught a life lesson, Palin said. “You gotta get off your butt to make a buck,” Palin said, to cheers from the crowd of 700 or so who had nabbed tickets to the event. The surprise came later, as Palin revealed the motivation for her acceptance of the invitation from senior class President...

A very persistent Republic High School senior with an odd fascination for Sarah Palin managed to convince the sassy caribou-skinning gal from Wasilla to bring her show – or what little is left of it – to the tiny Eastern Washington town of Republic. If you haven’t heard, Palin, whose boundless anti-intellectualism can still leave one breathless, will deliver the commencement address to the school’s graduating class of 26 on Saturday afternoon. Each graduate has been given 20 tickets to distribute, which should guarantee that the 700-person capacity gym will be pleasantly stuffed. Still, to a large extent, Palin’s visit...

President Obama’s lecturecommencement speech to the Naval Academy graduates on Friday left behind such a poor and lingering aftertaste, I thought this commencement speech from Sen. Ted Cruz to the graduates of Hillsdale might make a nice sort of belated palate cleanser. Sen. Cruz’s message was all about the inherent virtues of freedom, the American meritocracy, and the accompanying economic mobility, in which people’s rises and falls are directly related to their “talent, passion, perseverance, and willingness to fight for the American dream.” The best part about it all, of course, is that by pursuing and developing your own unique...

BOSTON COLLEGE COMMENCEMENT STATEMENT Cardinal Sean May 10, 2013 Because the Gospel of Life is the centerpiece of the Church’s social doctrine and because we consider abortion a crime against humanity, the Catholic Bishops of the United States have asked that Catholic institutions not honor government officials or politicians who promote abortion with their laws and policies. Recently I learned that the Prime Minister of Ireland, the Hon. Mr. Enda Kenny was slated to receive an honorary degree at Boston College’s graduation this year. I am sure that the invitation was made in good faith, long before it came to...

As a presidential speech writer for the first Bush White House, I am always very interested in what presidents say in their formal speeches. They know, of course, that their remarks will be widely covered by the press, studied by analysts, and influential in contemporary political debates. For that reason, presidents rarely speak off-the-cuff, and their every word is carefully chosen for exactly the message the White House wants to convey to the public. Their graduation speeches, like all presidential addresses, go through many drafts and are reviewed by high-level administration officials to ensure that they accurately reflect the administration's...

We’d been hearing good things over the weekend about Wellesley High School English teacher David McCullough, Jr.’s faculty speech to the Class of 2012 last Friday. Here it is, in its entirety, courtesy of Mr. McCullough: Dr. Wong, Dr. Keough, Mrs. Novogroski, Ms. Curran, members of the board of education, family and friends of the graduates, ladies and gentlemen of the Wellesley High School class of 2012, for the privilege of speaking to you this afternoon, I am honored and grateful. Thank you. So here we are… commencement… life’s great forward-looking ceremony. (And don’t say, “What about weddings?” Weddings are...

Addressing the graduating seniors of Joplin High School during a commencement speech on Monday, President Obama praised the selfless response of the Joplin community, and other kindhearted individuals, in the aftermath of the horrific tornadoes that struck the city last year. But the President cautioned the students that "as you begin the next stage in your journey, you will encounter greed and selfishness; ignorance and cruelty. You will meet people...who believe looking after others is only for suckers." "But", the President added, "you [the students] are from Joplin. So you will remember, you will know, just how many people there...

(CNSNews.com) -- Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who supports abortion, was heckled and called a “murderer” by a pro-life activist as she gave a speech to graduating students on Friday at Georgetown University, the nation’s oldest Catholic academic institution. Kathleen Sebelius Commencement Address Video“I got a message for you Kathleen Sebelius: You’re a murderer, abortion is murder!” yelled the heckler as he was being escorted out of the room by campus police. The young activist told CNSNews.com that he goes by the name of David Lewis.Alluding to Biblical scripture, Lewis also yelled across the room towards Sebelius, “We...

The commencement speaker this June at the largest Catholic university believes that Christianity is the most dangerous of devotions and that the earth would benefit from the extinction of man. De Paul University, in Chicago, is hosting E.O. Wilson, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and professor of entomology at Harvard University. Wilson’s beliefs run directly contrary to Christian tradition, and his statements are unequivocal in their opposition: 1998: “The most dangerous of devotions, in my opinion, is the one endemic to Christianity: I was not born to be of this world,” as belief in an afterlife weakens man’s devotion to...

WASHINGTON, May 16, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Cardinal Newman Society is sending to Georgetown University President John DiGioia the names of more than 26,000 people who joined an open letter urging Georgetown to cancel an invitation to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to speak at a diploma ceremony this Friday. The petitions are also being shared with Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington, D.C., and Pope Benedict XVI’s ambassador to the United States, Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano. “These signers are students, alumni, Catholic families, pastors and others who can no longer tolerate Georgetown University’s betrayal of our Church and...

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, May 15, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) – The nation’s largest Catholic university will feature a commencement speaker who believes “the rest of life would benefit enormously” from the extinction of mankind, considers Christianity “the most dangerous of devotions,” and boasted about weakening the “dissolutive, oppressive institutions of organized religion.” Population guru E.O. Wilson will address a combined ceremony of DePaul University‘s College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences and its College of Science and Health on June 10. The date is his 83rd birthday.

A letter signed by about 500 Emory University faculty, students and alumni seeks to bring attention to the anti-evolution views of Dr. Ben Carson. The world-renowned Johns Hopkins University neurosurgeon will be the Atlanta university's May 14 commencement speaker. The letter does not ask that Carson be dis-invited. Rather, it seeks to bring attention to the issue. It notes Carson's accomplishments as a neurosurgeon and philanthropist, then adds, "But, as those students, their families, and the Emory Community listen to his speech, we ask you to also consider the enormous positive impact of science on our lives and how that...

Princeton University Professor Robert George is taken aback by Georgetown University’s invitation to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. But he writes at The Mirror of Justice blog that he understands exactly why they did it: The left-liberals who run the show at Georgetown have found a way to signal to the world that the nation’s oldest Catholic, and most famous Jesuit, university stands with the Obama administration in its war (to use, if I recall correctly, Kathleen Sebelius’s own word) against the Catholic bishops and others who oppose the HHS mandate as a violation of religious freedom and the rights...

Tis commencement season, and so without further ado, we present TVNewser’s fifth annual list of who’s-speaking-where-and-when at America’s colleges and universities (in alphabetical order): ABC/CNN’s Christiane Amanpour: University of Southern California - Annenberg School of Journalism (CA), May 11 NBC’s Tom Brokaw: Arizona State University (AZ), May 3…Vanderbilt University (TN) – Senior Class Day, May 10 FNC’s SVP of News Editorial Michael Clemente: Warren County Community College (NJ), May 19 ABC’s Katie Couric: University of Virginia (VA), May 20 NBC’s David Gregory: Emerson College (MA), May 14 CNN/CBS’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta: University of Michigan (MI), previously on April 28 NBC’s...