[hellinahandcart]

This was an organized effort, that was to include not just graduates but GUESTS in the audience. Go here. I would definitely call this a disruption worthy of ejection. You can't "peacefully turn your back on the President" unless you are STANDING UP BLOCKING THE VIEW OF THE PERSON BEHIND YOU. And those people's rights to view the commencement outweigh the rights of those who want to force people to look at them. Sorry, that's just the way it is.

Peace signs on mortar boards are okay, if lame. And, if they had tried to organize something along the lines of "protest the war by pulling your knees up to your chin and swiveling around in your seat till your back is to the President but yet you're not in anyone else's way", I suppose I wouldn't have a thing to complain about.

Annie, did you here anything about protesters being ejected from the ceremony, and did your friend mention whether they were students or audience members?

[rface]

there are at least two AP reports - June 14, 2002 at 9:55:12 PDT (the last paragraph):

Bush was invited to speak at the Ohio State commencement by representatives of the graduating class. But immediately before class members filed into the giant football stadium, an announcer instructed the crowd that all the university's speakers deserve to be treated with respect and that anyone demonstrating or heckling could be subject to expulsion and arrest.

from a more recent(1 hour 20 minutes more recent)AP report - June 14, 2002 at 11:15:17 PDT

....To Ohio State graduates who obeyed an announcer's warning against heckling and greeted Bush with hearty cheers, ...

....there is no longer the reference to arrest or expulsion.