Yale for Sale

Nathan Newman nathan at newman.org
Mon May 21 13:23:45 PDT 2001


Well, the protests against Bush were quite effective today - essentially all the "colleges" (undergrad housing units) and graduate divisions organized to produce issue-based signs that were distributed before marching in. When Bush was introduced, a sea of colored signs went up on issues ranging from reproductive rights to the death penalty to workers rights. I think the other honorary speakers were cheered far more than normal just so the contrast of people sitting on their hands (with scattered booing) would be that much more dramatic with Bush. A number of larger banners were also smuggled in.

Bush took the only route he could - he played his patented self-deprecating act to the hilt, joking about his Cs in college and so on. Acknowledging the widespread opposition to him, he noted that it appeared that the requirement for a person to speak at commencement (almost never done at Yale) is not only to have graduated from Yale and be President, but to lose the Yale college vote to Ralph Nader. It's a slick routine since even opponents laugh at his attacks on himself.

But TV crews and reporters were interviewing all sorts of anti-Bush students - we'll see if I make it on myself, since they were doing a lot with law students, since he was given an honorary doctorate of law, and there was interest because a number of the law faculty circulated letters of protest.

But it was encouraging to see what a large proportion of the undergrads and grads participated in the protest.

Definately a surprising number of people really pissed off enough to actually take some action.

-- Nathan Newman

ps. And it sure as hell is great to be friggin done with this place :)



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