New School Graduation
Several graduates held up a banner aimed at Mr. McCain, an Arizona Republican and likely 2008 presidential candidate, declaring: "Our commencement is not your platform." Other students and faculty members waved orange fliers with the same message, and others wore orange armbands protesting Mr. McCain as their graduation speaker.
Senator McCain was heckled and booed at the New School graduation. Read the full story here
Jean Sara Rohe, one of the graduation speakers challenged the appropriateness of the Senator as the key note speaker, due to his support of the war in Iraq.
"The senator does not reflect the ideals upon which this university was founded," she said, to a roaring ovation. "This invitation was a top-down decision that did not take into account the desires and interests of the student body on an occasion that is supposed to honor us above all." Senator McCain will tell us today that dissent and disagreement are our civic and moral obligation in times of crisis, and I agree," she said. "I consider this a time of crisis, and I feel obligated to speak."
She continued, "Senator McCain will also tell us about his strong-headed self-assuredness in his youth, which prevented him from hearing the ideas of others, and in so doing he will imply that those of us who are young are too naïve to have valid opinions.
"I am young, and although I don't profess to possess the wisdom that time affords us, I do know that pre-emptive war is dangerous and wrong," she said.
She added, "Osama bin Laden still has not been found, nor have those weapons of mass destruction."
Senator McCain was heckled and booed at the New School graduation. Read the full story here
Jean Sara Rohe, one of the graduation speakers challenged the appropriateness of the Senator as the key note speaker, due to his support of the war in Iraq.
"The senator does not reflect the ideals upon which this university was founded," she said, to a roaring ovation. "This invitation was a top-down decision that did not take into account the desires and interests of the student body on an occasion that is supposed to honor us above all." Senator McCain will tell us today that dissent and disagreement are our civic and moral obligation in times of crisis, and I agree," she said. "I consider this a time of crisis, and I feel obligated to speak."
She continued, "Senator McCain will also tell us about his strong-headed self-assuredness in his youth, which prevented him from hearing the ideas of others, and in so doing he will imply that those of us who are young are too naïve to have valid opinions.
"I am young, and although I don't profess to possess the wisdom that time affords us, I do know that pre-emptive war is dangerous and wrong," she said.
She added, "Osama bin Laden still has not been found, nor have those weapons of mass destruction."
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