BC Faculty Member Quits Over Rice Invitation
Steve Almond is/was a fiction writer and adjunct professor of English. His letter of resignation appears in today's Boston Globe. It's a must-read. I can't imagine how difficult this decision must have been for him, and I applaud his courage.
Listen to him in an interview with Terri Gross on NPR today.
Addendum: When BC Sociology Professor Charles Derber appeared on Fox News, Bill O'Reilley told him, "[T]here are 3,000 people who can't go to your commencement this spring" because they died on 9/11. What an inappropriate and disgusting assertion! See Media Matters' coverage of it here.
I wonder where O'Reilley would have stood in 1995 when BC attempted to honor former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher and was opposed by Irish faculty, donors, and trustees because of the way she handled Northern Ireland? In that case, Thatcher declined the offer.
2nd Addendum: It doesn't stop there. In his latest column, O'Reilley refers to Boston College protesters as "loons," near-fascists, "fanatics," and writes, "all their talk of diversity and freedom of expression is just so much BS at BC."
This has nothing whatsoever to do with free speech, and everything to do with whom the university decides to honor as part of its commencement exercises. I'm really very angry now.
Comments
Can someone please educate the right on the actual meaning of "fascist"?
It signifies a virulent, all-consuming nationalism, where national identity trumps all other concerns in terms of foreign policy, as in "We can do this because it's the American way."
Um, that doesn't seem very liberal to me, Bill... On the political spectrum, fascism is much closer to conservatism than liberalism is. We're revolutionaries.
Posted by: Charlie | May 12, 2006 07:46 PM