Sacramento Bee Publisher Booed During Her College Graduation Speech

AP ^ | December 16, 2001

[Gritty]

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - A newspaper publisher's commencement speech was drowned out by hecklers when she mentioned threats to civil liberties posed by the federal government's investigation of the terrorist attacks.

Janis Besler Heaphy, president and publisher of The Sacramento Bee, was delivering the midyear graduation address Saturday to about 17,000 people at California State University in Sacramento.

When Heaphy raised questions about racial profiling, limits on civil rights and the establishment of military tribunals, the audience interrupted by clapping and stomping their feet for five minutes.

University President Don Gerth tried to quiet the audience, but Heaphy stopped speaking after more loud heckling erupted.

Heaphy told The Sacramento Bee afterward that the hecklers were merely blaming the messenger.

"This was a message about civil liberties and our acceptance of differing points of view in American society," she said. "It's a message that needs to continue to be heard."

Gerth blamed the interruption on students' family members and friends and said some students apologized to Heaphy after the ceremony.

"Our students have a right to hear our speaker," Gerth said. "It is a day I will never forget. I am not proud of it."

Heaphy's speech will be posted in its entirety Monday on the university's Web site, Gerth said.

Heaphy said she plans to continue to voice her concerns about potential civil liberties violations.

[RoseofTexas]

OH MY GOD! You'd think the sheeple have AWAKEN?! This is toooooo good to be true!

[JakeWyld]

Very classy of you! I am in agreement one hundred percent!

[Lancey Howard]

1. Would this guy Gerth consider inviting Ann Coulter or David Horowitz to speak? He probably would not. Ever.
2. If they did speak and were drowned out by hecklers, would Gerth say anything closely resembling, "It is a day I will never forget. I am not proud of it." ?
I don't think so.

My hat is off to these students. Finally, students are getting to know when a liberal is giving them a pile of horse manure.

[Teacher317]

Just the pessimist in me... also makes my point a LOT more scary! ;^)

I did NOT mean to imply ANY measure of support for that nightmare (Hillary winning ANY future office)!

[MissAmericanPie]

Maybe we shouldn't, but this is war and they started it. We will finish it. We have sat silently for what, two decades now patiently listening to their ignorant hate America first drivel? It's not like we don't already know what they are about to say, it's not like we havn't heard it adnauseum for 20 years. Now it's our turn to answer in rebuttal with a resounding SHUT UP!

[Eagle Eye]

Would you support the same behavior if it were Charleton Heston being booed and having his speech interrupted?

Or is this a(nother) case of approving bad behavior when it is politically expedient?

[SBeck]

OK, just checking. :-)

[Lancey Howard]

My question: whatever happened to civility and the right for opposing views to be heard?

LOFL!!! You're kidding, right?
The liberal Democrat scumbags destroyed the notion of "civility" long ago when they learned the fine craft of lying and shouting down anyone who attempts to speak truthfully. It's on TV all the time.

However, there is certainly no "right to be heard" - - where did you get that from?

[Sci Fi Guy]

Conservatives shouldn't start acting like liberals and shouting down critics..

What makes you think these were conservatives??? The article makes it sound like most of the student body was upset by her comments. You should enjoy this incident. A liberal discovers what a conservative faces everyday on a college campus.

[Nachum]

I am not giving away my constitution. The same jerks who run these papers are doing their best to do that each and every day. They stomp and scream scream loudly for their rights. Here in California that means the rights of illegal aliens. All in in the name of the constitution.

It is a lot of self serving pap. These publishers and editors deserve to be bood and heckled loudly and often.

[SBeck]

Right it's not, but it is implied. Even John Adams gave Cotton Mather the courtesy of the floor.

[aculeus]

This was a commencement speech. The graduates just got through four years of left-wing propaganda masquerading as teaching. For the first time they had nothing (grades) to lose by rejecting yet another left wing speech.

Go for it students!!!!

[Broward Lion]

She has this right in her own paper. Political remarks at a commencement are grosssly inapropriate. Those , in this case the vast majority, would be forced to tacitly endorse them by saying nothing or venting their opinion. She received tit for tat and she was in the minority. This is not the Viet Nam war. These bastards want to and can destroy us. We must destroy them first and detain and deport all illegal aliens. This women is a moron. How does arresting illegal arab aliens endanger the freedoms of citizens. It does just the opposite. It helps preseve our freedoms by saving us from further attacks. The liberals are playing a very danderous game. If another large attack occurs, many will rightly go after these fifth columnists who are more concerned about arab rights than our freedom. We have enough taxi drivers. Send all of the illegal muslims back. It makes me sick to realize we trained all of the nuclear experts in Pakistan and throughout the mideast.

[Sci Fi Guy]

My question: whatever happened to civility and the right for opposing views to be heard?

Liberals destroyed that a long time ago!! Seriously I remember reading (maybe here, maybe NRO, maybe someplace else) about a harvard prof who argued that being oppressed meant that the leftists didn't have to be fair, honest, or objective in presenting their point of view. His writings were really popular in the early 70's. Now that the students who like his ideas are now tenured professors, they've been practicing what he preached for quite a while.

[RightOnline]

"My question: whatever happened to civility and the right for opposing views to be heard? Hard to believe that the liberties that our founding fathers fought and died over are being casually discarded by "walking uninformed opinions" (oxygen thieves say I)."

Oh, jeez............I hardly know where to begin.

Ever take the Sacramento Bee? I did. For years. ULTRA-leftist drivel. Makes a superb bird-cage liner; that's about all it's good for. This woman's paper is notorious for stomping on anything resembling "conservative speech" or anything that can shed liberals in a negative light. They're a McClatchey paper, and ALL McClatchey papers in this country are stamped from exactly the same mold.

Yet, you wring your hands because some citizens who just happen to know what this woman is about (you forget; they LIVE there) exercised THEIR right of expression by stomping their feet and clapping. Unbelievable.

They didn't shoot her. They didn't stone her. They didn't mob the stage and drag her, kicking and screaming, into the middle of the venue and string 'er up. Stop implying that they were some sort of "lynch mob", for that's totally asinine.

She couldn't give a flip about "two sides of a story"...........or the TRUTH, for that matter. She got off lucky.

It never, EVER ceases to amaze me how liberals will stomp the living s**t out of our rights to hear both sides of a story or even the unvarnished truth.........and will be the first to scream bloody murder when someone "boos" them or holds up a sign or walks out on one of their idiotic speeches. They're just go**amned lucky that the backlash hasn't been worse and they're too stupid to know it.

We've had enough, we have FAR too many other places to get our news...........unfiltered, unfettered, factual news...........and we refuse to kow-tow to these dripping socialists any longer. YOU can just deal with it.