Bigotery still alive on college campuses

Matt Towery: Bigotry still alive on college campuses

Posted: May 11, 2014 - 9:23pm  |  Updated: May 12, 2014 - 12:00am

By Matt Towery

It’s happened again.

Another conservative African-American leader with the “taint” of a GOP past is invited to speak to a university. A small group of “enlightened” professors or students decide that the speaker is offensive to the highbrow standards of academia. A drumbeat starts and in a matter of days he or she is forced to withdraw in favor of a more “acceptable” replacement.

What open bigotry. What an assault on the entire concept of a true education in “the liberal arts.”

Condoleezza Rice was never a favorite of mine during the years of George H.W. Bush. I fell for the image pushed by the press that she was a “facts be damned” booster of Vice President Dick Cheney’s “let’s get ‘em at any cost and without solid proof” style of foreign policy.

But regardless of my ignorance of Rice’s job performance, what would a faithful execution of her duties as Secretary of State have anything to do with her worthiness as a commencement speaker at a second- or even third-tier university such as Rutgers?

I mean it’s a fine school (tying Texas A&M for 69th on last year’s U.S. News list of top schools). But Oxford or Cambridge it’s not.

Perhaps that is best illustrated by Rutgers’ decision to pay New Jersey’s version of Honey Boo Boo, the one and only “Snookie” of MTV reality fame, over $30,000 for an appearance there. How dreadful.

Ms. Rice’s unfair treatment by a select group of “intellectual” protesters at Rutgers was treated as par for the course by mainstream media. But it was not “par for the course” treatment. It was racist, cruel and anti-intellectual, bully-like behavior by “learned” men and women.

Had they directed their ire at a white equivalent, such as Hillary Clinton, their protests would have brought fire and brimstone upon their heads. And, hey, it’s no secret: I’m a fan of Hillary.

Al Sharpton, who has been accused of everything under the sun by critics, can speak wherever he pleases without protest or hassle. And that’s fair because this is America. If someone invites the man to speak, then speak he should.

But when Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, a conservative African-American, is chosen to speak at a commencement, there’s a good chance that “scholars of conscience” will raise hell about it. That happened in 2008 when Thomas was asked to return to his native Georgia to an even higher ranked national institution, the University of Georgia.

So let’s be clear about how this works. An idiot like Snookie can impart “wisdom” to Rutgers students. But when a woman with a Ph.D., who has studied at Harvard and Stanford, and who rose to become U.S. Secretary of State, is unworthy of sharing her observations to a group of 22-year-old students, the speech is met with protest.

This is not only racism but it is truly what I call “the honoring of ignorance.”

The Rutgers debacle is nothing new. It serves as a reminder of how our nation’s “intellectual elite” often end up paying homage to their own ignorance ... and racism.

Matt Towery lives and writes in Atlanta.