From the Sat. Boston Herald, editorial page:
An open letter to Steve Almond, erstwhile adjunct professor of English at Boston College:
Dear Steve,
Yesterday we were amused beyond words to see your open letter to BC President William Leahy on the oped page of the Boston Globe in which you dramatically resigned your post to protest the upcoming commencement address of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. (We do hope you are planning to get those final grades in, however.)
If there were a Pulitzer Prize for pomposity, we would be honored to submit your name in nomination.
Somehow we think the secretary will get over the slurs to her reputation, although we are grateful you weren’t a teacher of political science or history. That would truly give us pause about the hiring process at an otherwise splendid institution. We’re just assuming here that your specialty must be fiction, and your grasp on international relations, therefore, sketchy at best.
Your grandstanding gesture would merit little more than a don’t-let-the-screendoor-hit-you-in-the-backside, were it not for the final bit of advice addressed to those “impressionable seniors” as you called them (which begs the question of what they have spent four years doing). You urged them to exercise their “First Amendment rights at her [Rice’s] speech,” whatever that means.
The advice of any good, dedicated teacher would be to listen, to ponder, to open your mind and to draw your own conclusions. And, sad to say, Steve, on that score you fail the test.
