Condeleezaa Rice bullied out of Rutgers Commencement speech invitation

PJ O'Rourke: '60s Losers Are Today's Professors:

(May 20, 2014 ... NEWSMAX)
P.J. O'Rourke says he knows why college campuses stifle free speech — such as Rutgers University, some of whose faculty and students got former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to back out of delivering a commencement speech. "If you're looking for the fundamental problem, it would be the old coots my age, victims of the '60s, the real loser element,'' O'Rourke told "The Steve Malzberg Show" on Newsmax TV.
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Rice, who was invited to speak to graduating seniors, pulled out after some faculty members and students accused her of allegedly misleading the nation on the Iraq war and condoning torture during her time in the Bush administration.

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In a move which surprises absolutely nobody, Condoleeza Rice declined to deliver the Commencement Address at Rutgers University, where she had previously been invited to speak.

Her concern was apparently the violence offered by protesters (both students and faculty) when it was announced that she would be the featured speaker.

It was expected that she would keep the reported $30,000 honorarium which accompanied the invitation.

After  reading the announcement, it's difficult why members of the New Jersey state college student body and faculty objected to inclusion in the commencement ceremonies.

Except that, of course, she is black.

And a woman.

And a conservative.

And this is a Liberal School, which in its "Points of Pride" webpage asserts that:

We Have a Renowned Faculty The Rutgers faculty includes winners of the National Medals of Science and Technology, MacArthur “Genius” Fellowships, Guggenheim Fellowships, and Fulbright Scholarships.
We Are Highly Diverse According to U.S. News & World Report, Rutgers University–Newark boasts the most diverse campus in the nation, reflecting the rich array of people who call New Jersey home.

(The comment about being "highly diverse", of course, refers only to physical characteristics; apparently not to intellectual, philosophical, or political diversity.)

See below for the RUTGERS UNIVERSITY announcement that Rice would speak at the commencement:   This information is quoted in full, as nobody expects the webpage to stay online much longer.

http://news.rutgers.edu/news-release/honorable-condoleezza-rice-secretary-state-and-national-security-adviser-under-president-george-w/20140203#.U3wLrPldVHQ

The Honorable Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State and National Security Adviser Under President George W. Bush, Will Be Keynote Speaker at Rutgers’ 248th Commencement May 18

Board of Governors Chair Gerald C. Harvey, paleoanthropologist-environmentalist Richard E.F. Leakey, entrepreneur-journalist Donald Katz will join Rice as honorary degree recipients

Editor’s Note:

ATTENTION EDUCATION, ASSIGNMENT EDITORS

Media Contact:

Steve Manas

848-932-0559

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. – Former Secretary of State, the Honorable Condoleezza Rice will be the keynote speaker at Rutgers’ 248th anniversary commencement Sunday, May 18, it was announced at today’s Board of Governors meeting in Newark.

Rice, who served from January 2005 to 2009 under President George W. Bush as the nation’s 66th secretary of state – the second woman and first African-American woman to hold the position – will be awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws degree.

Rutgers also will award an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree to Gerald C. Harvey, outgoing chair of the university’s Board of Governors, and an honorary Doctor of Science degree to Richard E.F. Leakey, the renowned

The Honorable Condoleezza Rice

paleoanthropologist, public servant and environmentalist. Donald Katz, founder and CEO of Audible Inc. and formerly an award-winning journalist, will receive an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree and serve as Rutgers University-Newark’s commencement speaker Wednesday, May 21 at Prudential Center. 

Rice previously had been assistant to the president for national security affairs (national security adviser) under President Bush from January 2001 to 2005. She was the first woman in that post. She also served on President George H.W. Bush’s National Security Council staff from 1989 through March 1991. She was director, then senior director of Soviet and East European affairs, and special assistant to the president for national security affairs. In 1986, while an international affairs fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations, Rice served as special assistant to the director of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

At Stanford University, Rice is a professor of political economy in The Graduate School of Business; the Thomas and Barbara Stephenson Senior Fellow on Public Policy at the Hoover Institution; and a professor of political science. She is also a founding partner of RiceHadleyGates LLC, an international strategic consulting firm based in Silicon Valley and Washington, D.C

Rice served as Stanford’s provost from 1993 to 1999, during which she was the university’s chief budget and academic officer. She was responsible for a $1.5 billion annual budget and the academic program involving 1,400 faculty members and 14,000 students. In 1997, she also served on the Federal Advisory Committee on Gender-Integrated Training in the Military.

A member of the Stanford faculty since 1981, Rice has won two of the institution’s highest teaching honors – the 1984 Walter J. Gores Award for Excellence in Teaching and the 1993 School of Humanities and Sciences Dean’s Award for Distinguished Teaching.

Rice has authored and co-authored numerous books, including two bestsellers, No Higher Honor: A Memoir of My Years in Washington (Crown, 2011) and Extraordinary, Ordinary People: A Memoir of Family (Crown, 2010). Her other works include Germany Unified and Europe Transformed: A Study in Statecraft (Harvard University Press, 1995) with Philip Zelikow; The Gorbachev Era (Stanford Alumni Association, 1986) with Alexander Dallin and Uncertain Allegiance: The Soviet Union and the Czechoslovak Army (Princeton University Press, 1984).

In 1991, Rice co-founded the Center for a New Generation (CNG), an innovative, after-school academic enrichment program for students in East Palo Alto and East Menlo Park, Calif. In 1996, CNG merged with the Boys and Girls Club of the Peninsula (an affiliate club of the Boys and Girls Clubs of America). CNG has since expanded to local BGCA chapters in Birmingham, Ala.; Atlanta and Dallas. She remains an active proponent of an extended learning day through after school programs.

Rice currently serves on the board of C3, an energy software company, and Makena Capital, a private endowment firm. In addition, she is a member of the boards of the Commonwealth Club, the Aspen Institute, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the Boys and Girls Clubs of America. Previously, Rice served on boards of the Chevron Corp., the Charles Schwab Corp., the Transamerica Corp., the University of Notre Dame and the San Francisco Symphony.

Born in Birmingham, Rice earned her bachelor’s degree in political science cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Denver; her master’s from the University of Notre Dame and her doctorate from the Graduate School of International Studies at the University of Denver