Campus Activists Shut Down Condoleezza Rice Speech At Rutgers

Condoleezza Rice was slated to earn $35,000 for delivering a commencement speech at Rutgers University on May 18th as well as receive an honorary law degree until sustained protests forced her to withdraw (final video below). She was also forced to withdraw from another recent invitation at the University of Minnesota.

Rice and her warmongering cohorts have encountered various problems attempting to make appearances around the world.

As a reminder of her central role, this first video is Condoleezza Rice openly defending the torture tactics implemented under George W. Bush, who himself stated to a British newspaper that it was “damn right” that he had authorized them. And here is a link to the declassified memo that outed her for lying about pre-9/11 threats.

Among the aforementioned cancellations by Rice, the video below shows the treatment she received when she went ahead with a 2011 speech at Stanford, where she now shamefully holds a position as professor of political science.

Things went in a similar direction for Donald Rumsfeld when he showed up at a community college in Dallas.

The consummate confrontation activist Luke Rudkowski gets a hold of Dick Cheney in 2011 at CPAC.

George W. Bush was scheduled in 2011 to attend a fund-raising event in Switzerland, but canceled after rights group World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) called on Swiss authorities to investigate Bush for war crimes if he set foot on Swiss soil. Later that year, protests broke out in Canada upon Bush’s arrival. Amnesty International stated it plainly: “Canada is required by its international obligations to arrest and prosecute former president Bush given his responsibility for crimes under international law including torture.” A coalition of rights groups has vowed to hound these war criminals wherever they show up.

A bevy of lawsuits have been issued across the world for this group of unrepentant war criminals, most prominently against Bush and Donald Rumsfeld. However, the U.S. legal system continues to legitimize torture by dismissing all suits. Until true justice can be served, their lives can be made as uncomfortable as possible by people of good conscience.

by Elizabeth Hagedorn

Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has backed out of a commencement speech at Rutgers University. (Via U.S. State Department)

This, following protests by some students and faculty over her role in the Iraq War.

PROTESTERS: “Condi Rice has got to go.”(Via MyCentralJersey.com)

In a statement posted to Facebook Saturday, Rice said her invite had become a “distraction,” writing: “I understand and embrace the purpose of the commencement ceremony and I am simply unwilling to detract from it in any way.”

The university’s board of governors had voted to pay Rice $35,000 for her speech, scheduled for May 18. She was also slated to receive an honorary Doctorate of Law degree from the university.

But for months, students have called on the university to disinvite her — which it refused to do. Carrying signs with slogans reading, ““No Honor for War Criminals” about 50 Rutgers students recently staged a sit-in. (Via MyCentralJersey.com)

One of the organizers told the student newspaper the protest was “not about politics, rather an issue of human decency.” (Via The Daily Targum)

But many conservative pundits on Twitter saw the outcry over Rice as an issue of free speech. Here’s Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson. (Via Twitter / @AriFleisher, Twitter / @jimgeraghty, Twitter / @JebediahBila)

CARLSON: “She’s basically being shouted down by a small group of angry people. that’s not a good precedent. If you don’t want to hear someone’s position, you just prevent them from talking?.”

Rice’s Rutgers withdrawal follows similar protests over her invitation to speak at the University of Minnesota and controversy over her appointment to the board of directors at file-sharing firm Dropbox. (Via National Review, The New York Times)

Rutgers released a statement shortly after Rice’s saying it respected her decision to pull out of the ceremony. The university now has two weeks to come up with a replacement speaker.

Maybe Snooki’s available. In 2011, Rutgers took some heat for paying reality TV star Snooki $32,000 to give a speech— $2,000 more than it paid Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morisson to speak that same year. (Via ABC, Google)

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