Casual
LAST, JONATHAN V.
Casual LEFT LUGGAGE A dark cloud sat low over Smith College on graduation Sunday. The venerable women's school had inexplicably decided to celebrate its 125 th commencement by inviting a...
...Five cops rushed to intercept the papier-mache kid and wrangle him or her out of the quad...
...Gloria Steinem has received the honor twice...
...Then, as the speaker mentioned the remarkable example of the passengers of Flight 93, a man rushed the stage carrying a sign proclaiming, "Another reason why they hate us...
...JONATHAN V LAST...
...In case you're wondering, the beleaguered speaker was Bill Clinton's secretary of state, Madeleine Albright...
...Our aim," it explained, "is to raise awareness about the policies [the speaker] endorsed while in public office and to encourage people to reflect on what qualities are important in an appropriate commencement speaker...
...During the procession, scores of graduates wore red armbands or red ribbons (so did some audience members and even one of the undergraduate ushers working the stage)—by my unscientific count, between 15 and 25 percent of the 600 or so seniors...
...In recent years the college has chosen graduation speakers almost exclusively from the ranks of the far left—Lani Guinier, Toni Morrison, Judy Chicago, Marian Wright Edelman, Anna Quindlen...
...It should be said that most of those present were respectful of Albright...
...Naturally, the campus and community shot into action...
...And maybe it's a sign of my own provincialism that I didn't even realize that there was a serious— that is, impassioned—critique of Albright from the left...
...A particularly dour girl had not only a red armband, but a long, tortured quotation from Virginia Woolf pinned to the back of her hood...
...Others held signs aloft as they filed to their seats...
...As soon as the speaker began, a chorus of shouts and boos came from the back of the assemblage...
...And that's when things got lively...
...The venerable women's school had inexplicably decided to celebrate its 125 th commencement by inviting a controversial ideologue to speak...
...When the speaker took the podium, a handful of graduates walked out...
...Another displayed a "No War" button...
...Mercifully, they did...
...It came as no surprise, then, that the speaker is affiliated with "an institution designed to legitimate foreign elections manufactured and manipulated by the U.S...
...Oh, to have been in Northampton when Elizabeth Dole came to campus in 1998...
...Live and learn...
...The speaker's biography was troubling, all right...
...interventions that led to millions of innocent deaths" and now stands "accused of crimes against humanity...
...Others turned their folding chairs around and sat with their backs to the stage for the entire address...
...The speech went on for a few more minutes— nothing terribly controversial, the standard fare about reaching for your dreams and giving back to your community...
...By then the screams and catcalls had returned...
...One more protester was surrounded by police, after which it was relatively i smooth sailing for the final i few paragraphs of the a speech...
...Some went further...
...In the end, it was perhaps unreasonable to expect Smithies to endure a merely mainstream liberal...
...A few moments later, another protester made a break for the stage wearing a gigantic papier-mache mask that someone told me looked like a caricature of the speaker featuring a giant hooknose...
...The most coherent one read, "I honor learning but do not respect your relentless pursuit of global empire...
...As guests filed into the quad for the ceremony, they were handed, along with the fancy official program, a Xeroxed leaflet put together by a group of anonymous Smithies that asked people to "Please take a few moments to read the concerns of several students and the biography provided inside to consider the suggested actions...
...They just aren't used to it...
...State Department for corporate and private interests...
...They applauded politely and paid as much attention as can be expected during a long ceremony involving hundreds of children who don't belong to you...
...Predictably, this fiend is also "a member of the Trilateral Commission...
...The handbill asked audience members to show their dissatisfaction by wearing red armbands, withholding applause, and keeping their heads bowed during the commencement address...
...So did a number of parents and guests...
...The heckling continued until almost the seven-minute mark in the speech, when the speaker finally addressed the protesters and promised to meet with them afterwards if they would quiet down...
...Police officers quickly surrounded him and escorted him out...
...We do not seek to transform this event into a disruptive political protest...
...The controversial figure was "responsible for human rights atrocities around the world" and had supported "major U.S...
Vol. 8 • June 2003 • No. 37
