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NU students, alumni call for Wright action - Groups demand honorary degree be awarded after all
Suntimes.com ^

Posted on 06/13/2008 5:57:26 AM PDT by Sub-Driver

NU students, alumni call for Wright action Groups demand honorary degree be awarded after all

June 8, 2008

BY MARY MITCHELL Sun-Times Columnist

When Northwestern University officials announced it was rescinding its offer to bestow an honorary degree upon the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., the reason given was that the school didn't want the occasion to be overwhelmed by controversy.

But apparently that may not be the whole truth.

According to a spokesman for the university, the decision to rescind the degree was made in March, before a Wright sermon became a headache for the Barack Obama campaign.

"That decision was made back in March prior to Rev. Wright going public," Alan K. Cubbage said on Friday.

"Basically, we want commencement to be a time that focuses on Northwestern graduates and their families," he said.

But Cubbage couldn't define exactly what made Wright controversial way back in March before his image and words exploded on YouTube and became a headache for Barack Obama.

(Excerpt) Read more at suntimes.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; US: Illinois
KEYWORDS: highereducation; nu; wright

1 posted on 06/13/2008 5:57:26 AM PDT by Sub-Driver
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To: Sub-Driver

Giving Mr. Wright an honorary degree from such a fine school would be a mistake even if he did not create trouble for Mr. Obama.

Whatever the reason, it was a good decision to withhold the degree.


2 posted on 06/13/2008 5:59:53 AM PDT by RexBeach
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To: Sub-Driver

What practical purpose is achieved by an “Honorary Degree?” Isn’t that about as useless as an “Honorary Pilot’s License”?

Aside from stroking the egos of both giver and receiver, what’s the deal with that?


3 posted on 06/13/2008 6:07:53 AM PDT by DieHard the Hunter (Is mise an ceann-cinnidh. Cha ghéill mi do dhuine. Fàg am bealach.)
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To: DieHard the Hunter
What practical purpose is achieved by an “Honorary Degree?” Isn’t that about as useless as an “Honorary Pilot’s License”?

It's supposed to be the school's way of telling everybody, "We commend this person as an example to our students."

It's no use as an academic credential, of course.

4 posted on 06/13/2008 6:11:07 AM PDT by thulldud (Congress does not want answers. They want scapegoats. (andy58-in-nh))
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To: DieHard the Hunter
I agree, “Honorary Degrees” cheapen the the educational process for those who actually earned the degree. If you want to honor someone invite them to speak at the graduation. That should be enough!
5 posted on 06/13/2008 6:14:09 AM PDT by martinidon
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To: Sub-Driver
Both Northwestern U. and the University of Illinois-Chicago are despicable, far left institutions. Chicago appears to be commie radical central. No wonder the DNC is relocating there (see very end of post).

Allies in War
By David Horowitz
FrontPageMagazine.com | Monday, September 17, 2001:

ON THE MORNING OF THE ATTACKS on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, along with a million other readers of the New York Times including many who would never be able to read the paper again, I opened its pages to be confronted by a color photo showing a middle-aged couple holding hands and affecting a defiant look at the camera. The article was headlined in an irony that could not have been more poignant, "No Regrets For A Love Of Explosives."

The couple pictured were Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, former leaders of the 1960s’ Weather Underground, America’s first terrorist cult. One of their bombing targets, as it happened, was the Pentagon.

"I don’t regret setting bombs," Ayers was quoted in the opening line of the Times profile; "I feel we didn’t do enough."

In 1969, Ayers and his wife convened a "War Council" in Flint Michigan, whose purpose was to launch a military front inside the United States with the purpose of helping Third World [Maoist-communist] revolutionaries conquer and destroy it.

Taking charge of the podium, dressed in high-heeled boots and a leather mini-skirt – her signature uniform – Dorhn incited the assembled radicals to join the war against "Amerikkka" and create chaos and destruction in the "belly of the beast."

Her voice rising to a fevered pitch, Dohrn raised three fingers in a "fork salute" to mass murderer Charles Manson whom she proposed as a symbol to her troops. Referring to the helpless victims of the Manson Family as the "Tate Eight" (the most famous was actress Sharon Tate) Dohrn shouted:

"Dig It. First they killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them, they even shoved a fork into a victim’s stomach! Wild!"

(big snip)

Today William Ayers is not merely an author favored by the New York Times, but a Distinguished Professor of Education at the University of Illinois, Chicago.

His Lady Macbeth [Bernardine Dohrn] is not merely a lawyer, but a member of the American Bar Association’s governing elite, as well as the director of Northwestern University’s Children and Family Justice Center.
[it's true! see: http://www.law.northwestern.edu/aclu/]

Article: Allies in War -by David Horowitz
FrontPageMagazine.com | Monday, September 17, 2001
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=63512670-BF7C-42A0-B41D-5D0FB9E09C09

The Center for Public Intellectuals & The University of Illinois-Chicago (UIC)
April 19th-20th, 2002, Conference

[Participants include: William/Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn, Sen Barack Obama]

April 19th-20th, 2002
Chicago Illini Union
828 S. Wolcott

This conference is part of the Center's mission of helping to create a more engaged civil society, working towards social change, fostering coalitions between theorists and activists, and combating anti-intellectualism in contemporary culture. It will be both a celebration of ideas and a rigorous examination of the roles and responsibilities that intellectuals play in society.

I. Why Do Ideas Matter? (a keynote panel)

We introduce the “meta” theme of the conference by hearing “success stories” from diverse voices discussing their experiences intervening intellectually.

Timuel Black, Chicago activist; Prof. Emeritus, City Colleges of Chicago
Lonnie Bunch, President, Chicago Historical Society
Bernardine Dohrn, Northwestern University Law School, Children and Family Justice Center
Gerald Graff, UIC, College of Liberal Arts & Sciences
Richard Rorty, Stanford University, Philosophy

III. Lunch and Public Encounters

Alternative breakout tours led by Chicago activists. Tours of Bronzeville and other communities, and visits to organizations that are working on partnering theorists with activists.

IV. Intellectuals in Times of Crisis
Experiences and applications of intellectual work in urgent situations.

William Ayers, UIC, College of Education; author of Fugitive Days
Douglass Cassel, Northwestern University, Center for International Human Rights
Cathy Cohen, University of Chicago, Political Science
Salim Muwakkil, Chicago Tribune; In These Times
Barack Obama, Illinois State Senator
Barbara Ransby, UIC, African-American Studies (moderator)

The Center for Public Intellectuals
University of Illinois-Chicago (UIC):
http://www.uic.edu/classes/las/las400/conferencealt.htm

Bill Ayers TODAY (April 6, 2008), from his own red communist star-headed website, begging to debate communism vs capitalism with Sean Hannity and STILL calling for revolution!

"Imperialism. I’m against it, and if Sean Hannity and others were honest, this is the ground they would fight me on. Capitalism played its role historically and is exhausted as a force for progress: built on exploitation, theft, conquest, war, and racism, capitalism and imperialism must be defeated and a world revolution—a revolution against war and racism and materialism, a revolution based on human solidarity and love, cooperation and the common good —must win.

We begin by releasing our most hopeful dreams and our most radical imaginations: a better world is both possible and necessary.

Source: http://billayers.wordpress.com/2008/04/page/2/

From David Horowitz's FrontPageMag.com/DiscoverTheNetworks.org:
March 6, 1970: "three members of the Weather Underground accidentally killed themselves in a Manhattan townhouse while attempting to build a powerful bomb they had intended to plant at a social dance in Fort Dix, New Jersey -- an event that was to be attended by U.S. Army soldiers. Hundreds of lives could have been lost had the plot been successfully executed."
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6808

"The bomb was intended to be planted at a non-commissioned officer's dance at Fort Dix, New Jersey.
The bomb was packed with nails to inflict maximum casualties upon detonation."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weatherman_(organization)#Chronology_of_events

'Guilty as hell, free as a bird—America is a great country,' he [Ayers] said."
August 2001, Chicago Magazine (article: No Regrets)
http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/August-2001/No-Regrets/

"In July 1969, Dohrn, Eleanor Raskin, Dianne Donghi, Peter Clapp, David Millstone and Diana Oughton, all representing 'Weatherman', as Dohrn's faction was now called, traveled to Cuba and met with representatives of the North Vietnamese and Cuban governments."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernardine_Dohrn

From David Horowitz's FrontPageMag.com/DiscoverTheNetworks.org:
"FBI files from 1976, recently made public under the Freedom of Information Act, confirm the connections between Weatherman, Havana, and Moscow. Weatherman leaders like Mark Rudd traveled illegally to Havana in 1968 to engage in terrorist training. There, camps set up by Soviet KGB Colonel Vadim Kotchergine were educating Westerners both in Marxist philosophy and urban warfare."
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6808

July 27, 1970: The United States Army base at The Presidio in San Francisco is bombed on the 11th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution. [NYTimes, 7/27/70] :
Chronology of Weather Underground attacks:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weatherman_(organization)#Chronology_of_events

Weather Underground Organization [linked to N. Vietnamese and Cuban gov'mts, KGB]
[420 pages in all on pdf]

Source: FBI | Freedom of Information Act

In 1976, the FBI's Chicago Field Office prepared a summary which described the activities of the Weather Underground Organization, also known as Weathermen. This organization described itself as a revolutionary organization of communist men and women. The FBI's analysis of its motivations, beliefs, and international travels are outlined in this summary.

[some excerpts from the 1976 report linking the organization to foreign governments...]

From the moment in October, 1967, when Radio Hanoi announced the formation of the South Vietnamese Peoples Committee for Solidarity with American People (by the National Liberation Front (NLF), the political arm of the Viet Cong) with the objective of establishing relations with "progressive organizations and individuals in the United States," a political front was enjoined in behalf of the national interests of the Democratic Republic of North Vietnam (DRV) (and the NLF), the purpose of which was to intensify the anti-war sentiment in the United States. From the initial meeting between the Vietnamese and leading anti-war activists held in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia, in November, 1967, to the July, 1969, meeting with leading Weatherpeople held in Havana, Cuba, the influence of Vietnamese representatives on the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) leadership became sharply pronounced. At the same time, the example of the Cuban revolution became the guide for the emerging American student revolutionary. With an increasing number of trips to Havana where the youthful revolutionary could learn at first hand how to create revolution, the influence of Cuba on the developing WUO [Weather Underground Organization] was enormous.

The WUO obtained their revolutionary methodology from the Cubans and Vietnamese and, importantly, put into practice what they had learned from them. The Weathermen, of course, did not just happen to come about during the June, 1969, SDS National Convention. They fully admit their radical heritage began during experiences gained in SDS and as shown herein their international contacts with representatives of the DRV and NLF which began in 1967 increased their anti-imperialist consciousness so that by 1969 they had solidified their revolutionary commitment to include the maximum optimum of armed struggle. So, when Huynh Van Ba, representative of the Provisional Revolutionary Government of Vietnam (PRG), instructed the WUO to "look for the person who fights hardest against the cops...Don't look for the one who says the best thing. Look for the one who fights," the campus base was forgotten and the WUO began to recruit the greasers and assorted oddments who had displayed their hatred of authority in direct combat with police.
http://foia.fbi.gov/foiaindex/weather.htm

June 12, 2008: Obama moves DNC operations to Chicago:
"In a major shakeup at the Democratic National Committee -- and a departure from tradition -- large parts of the committee's operations are relocating to Chicago to be fully integrated with the Obama campaign."
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0608/Obama_moves_DNC_operations_to_Chicago.html

6 posted on 06/13/2008 6:15:33 AM PDT by ETL
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To: DieHard the Hunter; martinidon

This is one more example of the wisdom of the policy of my alma mater not to award honorary degrees. Inevitably, one or more recipients of such a degree will dishonor the institution, as well as themselves.


7 posted on 06/13/2008 6:35:51 AM PDT by riverdawg
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To: Sub-Driver

I am surprised NU would rescind the offer. Campuses nationwide are often the first to promote institutional racism by excluding whites/Asians and others from set aside scholarships, programs, lowered entrance requirements, etc for selected favorite races. The most virulent bastion of racism is generally to be found in institutions of higher education.


8 posted on 06/13/2008 6:40:35 AM PDT by Neoliberalnot ((Hallmarks of Liberalism: Ingratitude and Envy))
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To: Sub-Driver

So the students are angry because the university was right about Wright before he made a total ass of himself. Guess they’re not too worried about the perception of their university.


9 posted on 06/13/2008 6:41:51 AM PDT by TheThinker (Capitalism is the natural result of a democratic government.)
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To: ETL

There ya go.


10 posted on 06/13/2008 6:47:27 AM PDT by <1/1,000,000th%
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