People are just speculating on this, nobody really knows anything. The University is not exactly transparent about this kind of stuff, and they need not be.
Graduation speakers
- Thread starter scubastevefl
- Start date
My personal opinion is that, generally, most speakers that you invite are going to give the general commencement speech. I don't think there was a realistic concern that Obama was going to give a pro-choice speech.
I don't think this is a "specific, partisan political statement". They asked the VP to speak who, generally, is more conservative than the President.
I don't think I've said anywhere that you don't have a right to take issue with the speaker.
I don't really need to cite any support because, as I've said from the beginning, I'm just speculating.
I'll be interested to see if Trump gets invited to give a commencement address anywhere else. Has he?
They specifically broke the tradition of inviting the PRESIDENT, in order to make a political statement.
An attempt to soften the blowback from this blatantly political & partisan action (instead inviting the VP) does NOT in any way change the nature of what they've done.
(and Pence is only more "conservative" in some aspects and according to some definitions of "conservative", it could easily be argued that he's far more fiscally liberal)
Again, I don't have an issue with the speaker. I have an issue with the ND Admin acting as a partisan political group at all (including in selecting commencement speakers)
That's what they've chosen to do here, and why I'm more or less done with them
(not with the school, just with the current head admins)
The university is not required to give you the commencement speaker that you want. Whine and throw a tantrum as much as you want to. I think Pence is a great choice. I'm looking forward to reading his remarks.
My speculation is that the ND administration was afraid that Trump speaking at graduation would overshadow the graduation ceremony itself. You would have protests, and counter protests, and possibly even trouble between the two groups. Far easier to just invite local boy Pence.
The university isn't required to teach math, or play football, or even stay open for next year.
But that argument in no way defends against criticisms if the ND Admin chose to stop doing any of those things.
It's not whining to accurately point out the partisan politics that the current ND Admin chosen to involve itself in, nor is it throwing a tantrum to refuse to help this admin until they acknowledge that they've done this, that it's wrong, and changes are made
(which is what I'm doing, and many others I know)
I'll enjoy reading a transcript of Pence's speech too, as I won't be at graudation.
But that in no way impacts or condones the partisan politics that the ND Admin has chosen to play
It was not only wrong, but pathetic, and I simply won't support it...and I'm not alone in that (thankfully)
I'm hopeful that cutting of funding/donations will force a change, but it's very possible that it will have no effect at all.
We'll see
Clearly you weren't around for Obama's speech.
Take it from someone who was a student at the time....that's certainly nothing new.
When Obama was announced, I heard numerous people talking about how they were giving up the university, sending their degree back, and washing their hands of Notre Dame.
Three years later, Notre Dame competed for a national championship and donations were up again. i saw these same people re-emerge on message boards. Your refusal to donate may make you happy (and I have no issue with that obviously) but it's unlikely to do anything.
Attending games and posting on message boards has nothing to do with supporting the Admin itself.
And I've been clear I still support the university, I just don't support the current admins that are leading it down this partisan politics road
My personal refusal to donate won't matter at all (its just a few hundred bucks a year), however similar actions by others I know are FAR more significant
We'll see if the ND admin continues down this partisan track, or turns back (hopefully)
Again, the same people who are upset about Trump are presumably the same ones who withheld donations after Obama was invited. Didn't matter at all.
I think that's a very, very poor assumption.
For example, I was 100% in support of Obama being our graduation speaker. Inviting him was NOT a partisan move, it was staying consistent with at tradition.
I'd say it's far more likely that the admin just compounded the number of alumns who won't support them, not just re-inured the same group.
(although there is some of both)
So like I said, we'll have to see if some folks pushing back against this admin's partisan political actions ends up forcing change
Hopefully it will force the admin to either remove the leaders pushing these partisan politics, change it's behavior, or ideally both
But we'll just have to wait an see
I don't know if "overshadow" is the right word, but it 100% had the possibility of being a major league distraction, taking the focus off of the stars of the day, the graduates. Since it would need to be announced so far in advance, imagine all the loons, both pro and con, that would descend on South Bend to get their 15 minutes of fame/infamy. Has fiasco written all over it. If I had a graduate, I'd be very happy he was not speaking.
Again, this is exactly what happened when Obama was invited to speak at graduation.
Literally, this exact thing.
But he was still invited, because that the tradition and the ND Admin made it clear it wasn't going to play politics with such a time honored tradition and WOULD respect the office of the presidency
(rightfully so)
The issue is that now that the same policy favors the other party, the ND Admin now wants to play politics......which is both pathetic and wrong.
It's pretty simple stuff
People were not marching in the streets every weekend and occasionally rioting over Obama being elected. What we are seeing now is pretty much unprecedented in our lifetimes.
Yes. And Trump does not equal Obama. Unless you think every Democratic President is AUTOMATICALLY more controversial than a Republican President. Trump is the most controversial President since Nixon or Clinton, who both faced impeachment.
People we protesting all over Notre Dame's campus prior to graduation, as a result of the invitation....for months.
There is nothing unprecedented about extended protests in relation to the president being invited to be ND's graduation.
It was literally the EXACT situation that you've described....I know, because I was there.
(and staunchly defended the ND admin at the time)
No president "equals" any other president.
Obama's invitation to speak at ND was INSANELY controversial, and sparked months and months of massive protesting around campus and turned campus into a total zoo on graduation day. It was NUTS.
Obama was every bit as controversial as Trump, with regards to being ND's grad speaker.
You're talking apples and oranges. People are marching and occasionally rioting every weekend in various parts of the country over Trump simply being the President. That was not the case with Obama. He was controversial, but not close to the current extent. Now, as to comparing what the response theoretically would be at Notre Dame if Trump were coming, versus what it was when Obama was coming, I have no idea. Nobody does. My intuition tells me that there would be less protest that was ND related, and 1000 times more that was national politics related, but that's just speculation.
It's not different though.
Both were controversial speakers at ND.
The ND Admin just made a partisan political statement about what partisan controversial speaker they're willing to support under the guise of upholding tradition and which one they'll oppose.
I supported the ND admin, because I actually believed them about upholding tradition, respecting the office of the presidency, and learning from everyone...even if you disagree with them.
However, they just showed they're total partisan hypocrits and betrayed my trust and support...but doing a complete 180 on their previous statements, in order to not invite Trump.
There is literally no difference, at all.
The ND Admin just forced a hypocritical partisan stance on the whole university...and it was both pathetic and wrong.
There is nothing complicated here.
And this is why I won't support ND's Admin until changes are made, and I know I'm not alone on this
I think you are letting your negative zeal on this issue cloud your judgement. The situations are totally different. One guy was a controversial speaker at ND, one guy is controversial everywhere in the world 24/7/365. They are not even remotely comparable situations. And it's totally unfair to the people involved to potentially make a fiasco of as meaningful a day as graduation based on trying to comply with a tradition.
And trust me, the great great majority of alums don't give a $hit about stuff like this. There are some that do, but they are vastly outnumbered by those who have too much to worry about in their lives to lose sleep over who is speaking at graduation.
Except that the EXACT thing you're saying is what happened when Obama was the speaker. That graduation was completely usurped by protests, counter-protests, political reporting, etc.
Again, take it from someone who was actually there....it was nuts.
So your point is 100% and completely moot.
From my conversations with other alumns, I think you're pretty far off on your estimation. However, the number of alumns who will actually choose to completely withhold all funds from ND in response will certainly be a great minority
(if it was otherwise, ND would already have fired several admins and issues a public apology and invite)
We'll see if the small percentage of people withholding funds from ND is enough to hurt ND's bottom line sufficiently to cause a change
We can only hope that it does force a change, and the ND admin is forced away from it's partisan political trend.
We'll see
And you support doing the same thing again? Maybe they learned their lesson from the last time.
Yes. It's nothing short of hypocrisy and partisan politics to do otherwise.
The admin at the time made if very clear that they weren't "endorsing Obama" or "not endorsing Obama", they were just upholding tradition and respecting the office...and that at a college, we should be able to learn from everyone.
They're now doing a complete 180 on that, simply for partisan political reasons. The ND admin and most ND faculty don't like Trump, so now that controversy is going the other way....suddenly it's okay to cave to controversy and all the arguments they spent so much time spouting don't matter anymore.
I don't support betraying values you've espoused nor do I support betraying the trust of the people who are supposed to matter most to the university (students and alumns)
The made their stance clear during the Obama protests/craziness....and they were right!
It's simply pathetic and wrong that they would turn into hypocrites now, just to play partisan politics
I certainly can't support admins who are that hypocritical and pathetic
I think your being selfish and your priorities are out of whack. Because you and your family had to go through all that BS at your graduation, the class of 2017 should have to deal with it too? Sorry, not buying it.
It wasn't my graduation. I was just a freshman that year. Many of my friends were graduating...plus senior week is just awesome, so I stayed through graduation at my buddy's apartment.
And I'm not sure that you're actually reading anything I'm writting....it seems like you're just deciding what strawman you'd like to combat with and doing so.
The reason that the university NEEDS to extend the invitation to Trump is because that's the tradition and set of values that they defended to the hilt when they invited Obama
(and were right to do so....for all the reasons we've discussed in this thread)
The fact that Obama's invitation made campus such a disaster is just a rebuttal to your weak argument about "Trump's invitation would cause to much distraction"....showing that the distraction wasn't a problem for a Democratic president's invite.
Get it now?
It's about values, respecting the office, traditions, and avoiding hypocrisy...and protests haven't and shouldn't cause us to put those values aside and act pathetically.
See if you can process that.
I get your point, I just don't agree with your rationale. And I do think your priorities are amiss. Because we made a fiasco of graduation once, we should stay loyal to tradition and do it again, maybe even exponentially more so? No, we shouldn't.
It's not once, it's every president since Eisenhower.
This admin just used this exact logic, adamantly, to defend the invitation of Obama...and rightfully so.
Doing a 180 now is nothing short of hypocritical and pathetic.
You haven't expressed even 1 colorable argument as to how the ND's admin's actions are not:
(1) Hypocritical; and
(2) Extremely Partisan and Divisive; and
(3) Academically Dishonest; and
(4) Pathetic
ND has a set of values, a tradition, and a respect for the office....and this admin is abandoning all of these just to play partisan politics...after defending them for Obama
Pathetic.
I just make one simple argument. Graduation with Obama as speaker turned into a public fiasco on campus, taking away from the significance of the event itself, becoming bigger than the event itself. Knowing that the current Trump controversy level dwarfs what Obama was dealing with at that time, it's very reasonable to think that will happen again, likely to an even greater degree, and maybe even to a much greater degree. The priority IMHO is to protect the dignity of graduation for those involved; the students, the faculty and their families. The priority is not to stand on tradition, even if it started with George Washington. Your priority is basically the heck with graduation and the graduates, honor the tradition. I don't agree.
You want to believe that this is indicative of some big picture evil scheme on the part of the ND administration to dishonor that tradition for political reasons, hence your #1 thru #4 above. You don't consider the possibility that it might have absolutely nothing to do with any of that. It might be simple pragmatism in the face of knowing what was likely to happen to graduation day if you invited Trump, and the administration having different priorities than you do.
This tends to be my thought. I'm guessing that Trump on campus would be Obama times a multiplier, and the administration doesn't want to deal with that. Again, speculation from my point--but if any other Republican candidate would have won, I think they would have been invited (speculation, I know, but considering they invited Mike Pence, I'm guessing I'm correct here).
For what it's worth, I don't think it's much of a 'tradition' considering (i) it's only happened since Eisenhower, (ii) not every President who has spoken has done it in their first year, and (iii) I'm not even sure that Clinton, Kennedy, Ford, Nixon or LBJ were ever invited (I can't find record of it online).
Trump is speaking at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University commencement. Amazingly, some students are protesting.
This is the direction the left is moving. Does it in any way surprise you that the admins would refuse to stand by tradition and invite our newly elected POTUS. I always regretted not giving enough effort in high school to get accepted into the Notre Dame, but if this is what the school it becoming, Berkley of the midwest, then I'm glad they didn't get my money.
To paraphrase an old Texas saying: The Trump invite issue is all hat, no cattle.
Pence was and still is the right decision. There will be no significant - if any - drop in contributions. The protests will be minor on both sides, and life will go on.
Pence was and still is the right decision. There will be no significant - if any - drop in contributions. The protests will be minor on both sides, and life will go on.
