Graduation Speaker Pressured, Bows Out (Richard Rodriguez)

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | June 9, 2005 | Tanya Schevitz

[Mrs. Don-o]

Writer Richard Rodriguez, invited to speak at the California State University East Bay commencement in Hayward on Saturday, has decided to withdraw from the program after some graduating students threatened to boycott the event.

Rodriguez, author of the acclaimed memoir "Hunger of Memory," drew criticism from some students for his views against bilingual education and affirmative action...

[Mrs. Don-o]

Richard Rodriguez is a very talented but strangely self-conflicted writer. "Hunger of Memory" reads like an argument in favor of biligual education, but Ridriguez concludes by coming out against it. It's also clear that he took a royal free ride on affirmative action early in his academic career, but now he weighs in on the other side. (Maybe he realizes that it's not good for a young man to get in the habit of getting something for nothing??)

Rodriguez is gay, supposedly proudly gay. But I've read some of his essays which were almost contemptuous of liberal, modernist Catholic clergy who were too cowardly to espouse the full faith and morals of the Church. He also has written lines like these (I'm quoting from memory):

"The problem with men having sex with men is, they don't have a kosher place to stick it." (True!)

"Contracepting couples are hetrerosexual gays." (TRUE!!)

I wonder if the campus Gay Pride people came out for him or against him.

[skip_intro]

drew criticism from some students for his views against bilingual education and affirmative action...

Well, we certainly can't have those kinds of things being said at an institution of higher learning. It might undermine the programming.

[oblomov]

They probably wouldn't have understood him anyway, since his speech would have been in English.

[Jack Black]

I don't agree with everything the man says, but I heard him read on C-SPAN and I was transfixed. He is a great author in the sense of writing very very well. Whether the positions he espouses are good ones is open to debate, but his eloquence is not. At least with me.