Our season of disinvitation

The former president of Princeton University, William Bowen, did a little name calling Sunday.
Students who campaigned against the guy who was supposed to deliver the commencement address at Haveford College were "immature: and "arrogant."
That probably wasn't exactly the uplifting, now-go-out-there-and-get-yours speech students were expecting.


Robert Birgeneau

Condoleezze Rice

More than 40 students and three professors at the college outside Philadelphia had protested a commencement speech invitation to Robert Birgeneau, former chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley. The protestors objected to Birgeneau's 2011 handling of an incident in which police used force at a Cal student protest. Haveford protestors wanted him to apologize, support payments for victims, and write Haveford students a letter explaining what he'd learned from the incident.
Oh, and they wanted him to buy them ice cream too. OK, that part's not true, but just barely false.
"I am disappointed that those who wanted to criticize Birgeneau's handling of events at Berkeley chose to send him such an intemperate list of 'demands,'" Bowen said Sunday. "In my view, they should have encouraged him to come and engage in a genuine discussion, not to come, tail between his legs, to respond to an indictment that a self-chosen jury had reached without hearing counter-arguments."


Christine Lagarde

Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Birgeneau is among a group of speakers who've been disinvited this year by colleges nationwide following student protests. Among them, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice who canceled her speech at Rutgers University, International Monetary Fund Director Christine Lagarde at Smith College, and Muslim women's advocate Ayaan Hirsi Ali at Brandeis University. Even first lady Michelle Obama stayed away from a high school graduation in Topeka, Kansas, although her offense apparently wasn't her politics so much as fear her appearance would draw so many spectators there wouldn't be seats for parents.
You don't have to agree with what happened at Cal to understand that Birgeneau is an outspoken advocate for undocumented aliens. You don't have to agree with Rice and the Iraqi War to appreciate her extraordinary mind and how she rose from a childhood in the segregated South to occupy one of the most prestigious positions in the nation. You don't have to agree with IMF policies to understand that Lagarde is one of the most powerful women in the world. And you don't have to agree with her views on Islam to appreciate Hirsi Ali, a Somali-born author and one-time member of the Dutch Parliament, to recognize her work on women's rights.
What is interesting about all these people is they are interesting. Interesting people are often controversial people. And controversial people are the people who make us think, who challenge our biases and force us be more tolerant.
Armed with their newly-minted college degrees, it doesn't seem too much to ask that college students endure a few minutes of talk from someone with different views. If they didn't learn even that much patience and tolerance after four years of college, perhaps their degree doesn't indicate as much learning on their part as the students like to believe.