Rutgers Students Protest Condi Rice Pick for Graduation Speaker

ForbiddenKnowledgeTV
Alexandra Bruce
May 6, 2014

Rutgers University students and professors are up in arms over the The State University of New Jersey’s choice in commencement speakers.

Rutgers’ New Brunswick Faculty Council passed a resolution last week calling on the university’s board of governors to rescind its invitation to former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

The resolution criticized the decision to have Rice speak, giving her $35,000 and an honorary degree, because of her involvement with the George W. Bush administration’s war in Iraq.

In their statement, they said: ” A Commencement speaker should embody moral authority and exemplary citizenship…an Honorary Doctor of Laws Degree should not honor someone who participated in a political effort to circumvent the law.”

The Council pointed to the false pretense of Weapons of Mass Destruction existing in Iraq and “enhanced interrogation techniques” as examples of the Bush Administration’s “breaking the law, rather than upholding it.”

This is not the first tie that Condoleeza Rice has delivered a controversial college commencement speech that caused problems with the students. In 2006, students and staff at Boston College stood up during Condi’s speech and turned their backs to her, holding up signs protesting the Iraq war.