Powerful and inspiring letter from
a professor at Boston College who is resigning in protest of
Condoleezza Rice being selected as the commencement speaker at this
year’s graduation.
Read comments in support of Professor Almond from our readers
below. Please send comments to youth_students@worldcantwait.org.
Condoleezza Rice at Boston
College? I Quit
by Steve Almond
An open letter to William P. Leahy, SJ, president of Boston
College.
Dear Father Leahy,
I am writing to resign my post as an adjunct professor of
English at Boston College.
I am doing so — after five years at BC, and with tremendous
regret — as a direct result of your decision to invite Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice to be the commencement speaker at this year’s graduation.
Many members of the faculty and student body already have
voiced their objection to the invitation, arguing that Rice’s actions as
secretary of state are inconsistent with the broader humanistic values of the
university and the Catholic and Jesuit traditions from which those values
derive.
But I am not writing this letter simply because of an
objection to the war against Iraq.
My concern is more fundamental. Simply put, Rice is a liar.
She has lied to the American people knowingly, repeatedly,
often extravagantly over the past five years, in an effort to justify a
pathologically misguided foreign policy.
The public record of her deceits is extensive. During the
ramp-up to the Iraq
war, she made 29 false or misleading public statements concerning Iraq’s
weapons of mass destruction and links to Al Qaeda, according to a congressional
investigation by the House Committee on Government Reform.
To cite one example:
In an effort to build the case for war, then-National Security
Adviser Rice repeatedly asserted that Iraq
was pursuing a nuclear weapon, and specifically seeking uranium in Africa.
In July of 2003, after these claims were disproved, Rice
said: ”Now if there were doubts about the underlying intelligence . . . those
doubts were not communicated to the president, the vice president, or to
me.”
Rice’s own deputy, Stephen Hadley, later admitted that the
CIA had sent her a memo eight months earlier warning against the use of this
claim.
In the three years since the war began, Rice has continued
to misrepresent or simply ignore the truth about our deadly adventure in Iraq.
Like the president whom she serves so faithfully, she
refuses to recognize her errors or the tragic consequences of those errors to
the young soldiers and civilians dying in Iraq.
She is a diplomat whose central allegiance is not to the democratic cause of
this nation, but absolute power.
This is the woman to whom you will be bestowing an honorary
degree, along with the privilege of addressing the graduating class of 2006.
It is this last notion I find most reprehensible: that Boston
College would entrust to Rice the
role of moral exemplar.
To be clear: I am not questioning her intellectual gifts or
academic accomplishments. Nor her potentially inspiring role as a powerful
woman of color.
But these are not the factors by which a commencement
speaker should be judged. It is the content of one’s character that matters
here — the reverence for truth and knowledge that Boston
College purports to champion.
Rice does not personify these values; she repudiates them.
Whatever inspiring rhetoric she might present to the graduating class, her
actions as a citizen and politician tell a different story.
Honestly, Father Leahy, what lessons do you expect her to
impart to impressionable seniors?
That hard work in the corporate sector might gain them a
spot on the board of Chevron? That they, too, might someday have an oil tanker
named after them? That it is acceptable to lie to the American people for political
gain?
Given the widespread objection to inviting Rice, I would
like to think you will rescind the offer. But that is clearly not going to
happen.
Like the administration in Washington,
you appear too proud to admit to your mistake. Instead, you will mouth a bunch
of platitudes, all of which boil down to: You don’t want to lose face.
In this sense, you leave me no choice.
I cannot, in good conscience, exhort my students to pursue
truth and knowledge, then collect a paycheck from an institution that displays
such flagrant disregard for both.
I would like to apologize to my students and prospective
students. I would also urge them to investigate the words and actions of Rice,
and to exercise their own First Amendment rights at her speech.
Steve Almond is the author of the story collections ”The Evil B. B. Chow” and ”My Life in Heavy Metal.”
Published on Friday,
May 12, 2006 by the Boston
Globe
Letters from our readers
Thank you, for your stand for integrity and for a voice given by a
clear conscience. Your message, both written and in action, speaks
loudly and demonstrates a great courage.
I applaud you.
C.H, Landmark Seminar Leader
Every little act of this
nature helps the world become a better place and does much to
counteract the corruption and wrong doing.
Best Wishes,
scott (now living in Europe because I couldn’t stand to see what they were doing to my home).
The immigrants have shown
the way, risking what little they have on behalf of freedom. For a
person with an academic post to give it up, not knowing what will be
the consequences is inspiring. I hope, dearly, that dozens of
universities rush to offer him a post.
B.R.
Dear Students,
The recent resigning of
Professor Almond over the appearance of Ms. Rice conducting the
commencement ceremonies at your school is nothing short of heroic. You
should be proud to have a professor that will go out in a blaze of
glory over the appearance of someone from the Bush Regime who has
repeatedly lied, and stayed lockstep with the president no matter how
wrong he was.
Sincerely,
S L
Douglasville, GA
But in the long run, I
think that the3 Boston College community and our society will be
better for your having stood up and taken a stand against the
pervasive, malignant deceit and violent, power-mad delusion that
have been the hallmarks of our current administration, including
and particularly exemplified by the false, public statements of
Ms. Rice.
Steve’s eloquent
resignation letter made my day. Truth is hard to find these
days, and a person of his courage shines a light in the
darkness. Thank you, Steve, for helping keep my hope alive.
R.A,
Grand Rapids, Michigan
At a time when the
Decider/ Dictator Bush flaunts his criminal actions and threatens more
wars of aggression, we all must speak out.
You are an excellent,
patriotic example for students and faculty everywhere. As an adjunct
faculty member myself, I understand the sacrifice you are making to
protect our country. I have sent your letter out to my large current
events e-mail list. I am on the faculty of Graduate Theological Union
inBerkeley, affiliated with UC Berkeley.
Rev. Taigen Dan Leighton, Ph.D.