Liberals Dominate Spring Commencement Exercises at Top Universities

Young America’s Foundation ^ | MAY 20, 2003 | Rick Parsons

[Remedy]

HERNDON, VA – A survey released today by Young America’s Foundation indicates top colleges and universities across the nation overwhelmingly choose liberal speakers for commencement exercises.

Using U.S. News & World Report’s ranking of the top 50 colleges and top 50 universities in the country, Young America’s Foundation has found for the tenth consecutive year that commencement speakers at these elite schools are heavily weighted to the left.

Commenting on the annual study, Young America’s Foundation President Ron Robinson explained, "For ten years, we’ve shown that college administrators have used commencement ceremonies to send their students off with one more predictable leftist lecture. This year the most prestigious schools exclude scholars like Milton Friedman, Thomas Sowell, Antonin Scalia, and Clarence Thomas for the likes of Kofi Annan, Madeleine Albright, Walter Mondale, and Geraldine Ferraro."

* Washed-up Clinton administration officials and other liberal political figures delivering commencement addresses at top schools include former Vice President Walter Mondale at Macalester College; former Sen. George Mitchell at Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Clinton administration Secretary of State Madeleine Albright at Washington University in St. Louis and Smith College; UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan at Duke University; Clinton White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta at University of California – Berkeley (university-wide convocation); Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm at University of Michigan – Ann Arbor; New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg at New York University and Wake Forest University; former vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro at Case Western Reserve University; New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson at Middlebury College; former president of Mexico Ernesto Zedillo at Harvard University; and Pennsylvania Governor Edward Rendell at Franklin & Marshall College.

* University administrators’ love of liberal media personalities continues. This year’s cast includes PBS’s Jim Lehrer at Hamilton College; NBC’s Tim Russert at Lehigh University; MSNBC’s Chris Matthews at College of the Holy Cross; Inside Edition anchor Deborah Norville at Bucknell University; New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman at Yale University (class day); NPR’s Linda Wertheimer at Wellesley College; Newsweek columnist Anna Quindlen at Colgate University; former NewYork Times columnist Anthony Lewis at Oberlin College; and syndicated columnist Molly Ivins at Scripps College.

* Other notable liberal speakers this year include author Jonathan Kozol at Penn State University (Liberal Arts ceremony); social activist Tim Wise at Grinnell College; International Campaign to Ban Landmines Founder Jody Williams at Wesleyan University; former Clinton nominee (withdrawn) for assistant attorney general for civil rights Lani Guinier at Bard College; historian Arthur Schlesinger at Whitman College; Princeton University President Shirley Tilghman at Sarah Lawrence College and Princeton University; and Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu at University of Pennsylvania.

The leftist domination of commencement addresses in 2003 is not an irregularity. In the ten years that Young America’s Foundation has been tracking them, liberals have dominated while conservatives have generally been shut out. Some schools have an outrageous track record of hosting liberal commencement speakers.

* Yale hosted (for class day) actress Jodie Foster in 1993, activist Sargent Shriver in 1994, former Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke in 1995, actor Henry Winkler in 1996, author David McCullough in 1997, NBC’s Tom Brokaw in 1998, Clinton advisor David Gergen in 1999, journalist Bob Woodward in 2000, Sen. Hillary Clinton in 2001, New York Governor George Pataki in 2002, and New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman in 2003.

* Tulane University hosted Carter administration official Andrew Young in 1995, cancer researcher Andrea Martin in 1996, Mohammed Ali trainer Ferdie Pacheco in 1997, Clinton administration official Donna Shalala in 1998, ABC’s Cokie Roberts in 1999, Time magazine’s Walter Isaacson in 2000, Children’s Defense Fund President Marian Wright Edelman in 2001, New York Times columnist William Safire in 2002, and author David Halberstam in 2003. Tulane University has hosted only one conservative in the past nine years.

Even though liberals dominate commencements at the top schools in the nation, one would believe more than a few well-known conservatives would be on the list. However, only four top schools hosted well-know conservatives: University of Notre Dame hosted Sen. Richard Lugar; Yeshiva University hosted Middle East scholar Daniel Pipes; Georgia Institute of Technology hosted Sen. Elizabeth Dole; and Centre College hosted the husband and wife team of Sen. Mitch McConnell and Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao. Secretary Chao is the only Bush administration official speaking at a top-rated school, while four schools are hosting former Clinton administration officials.

Notably, FOX News personalities like Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, and Tony Snow are absent from the list of commencement speakers at top universities despite FOX’s ratings as the most watched cable news channel. Instead, people like Jim Lehrer, Tim Russert, and Chris Matthews appear on the list year after year.

Furthermore, conservatives recently appearing on the New York Times best-seller lists, like Peggy Noonan, Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, and Pat Buchanan, are absent from the top school commencements whereas liberal authors like Anna Quindlen, Thomas Friedman, Chris Matthews, and Anthony Lewis are speaking at top schools’ commencements.

For further information or to schedule an interview, please call Rick Parsons at (800) 292-9231.

Young America’s Foundation is an educational organization promoting conservative ideas on our nation’s campuses through lectures, publications, and conferences. This past academic year, the Foundation sponsored over 300 lectures, including addresses by Walter Williams, Ann Coulter, Ben Stein, and John Stossel.

[Remedy]

Rick Santorum booed off stage.....while a not so well know website Support Sen. Santorum's strong stand for family (PETITION) has been collecting 27,482 Signatures

[Remedy]

Don't they mean left wing extremist Nazi's?

Mean in more ways than one.

[Atlantian]

BTW, Zell is retiring in '04. And there is a good chance a Republican will be elected, especially with Bush's help.

[laurav]

You know, we may think of most of these people as liberal, but most readers are going to scratch their heads over YAF listing Pataki with the liberals. Most people wouldn't think of Bloomberg as liberal either. Nor Thomas Friedman, for that matter, despite evidence to the contrary.

Speaking of English students picking up leaves, here's a little ditty from USA Today on English PhD's driving buses:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2003-05-19-oplede_x.htm

[Susannah]

"Don't they mean left wing extremist Nazi's? "


Interesting comment. My understanding of Nazi's and Communists is that they are born from the same socialist roots...yet, the left is constantly connecting right-wing and Bush with Nazi's. I don't get it.

[Drew68]

Where did Mumia speak this year?

[Drew68]

It's funny, because I went to a relatively liberal school (certainly not a conservative one), but college is where I ultimately became a conservative.

I was actually a young liberal when I started college. The constant leftist, anti-white, anti-male, anti-western, anti-capitalist indoctrination that encompassed every facet of my college life caused me to rebel and in time, I became a conservative.

The law of unintended consequences indeed!

[torchthemummy]

Notice Michael Bloomberg was included - liberal in sheep's clothing.

As a stark conservative, I have to give Tim Russert some form of support. He does some hammering away on the likes of Daschle with his classic "quotes from the past". He sometimes doesn't ask the obvious initial questions and/or follow-ups but - hey - let's give the guy some credit. Anyone agree?

[Bob]

From your linked article:

One survey found only 35% of students received realistic job-placement information from their departments.

It sounds to me that these departments are committing wholesale fraud. Regardless, shouldn't these PhD candidates be able to do their own independent job-market research??

[Remedy]

Where did Mumia speak this year?

It's a coin toss - Islam is gaining most of its U.S. converts in prisons and on university campuses.

[laurav]

Not so much fraud as a matter of head-in-the-clouds students not asking and departments not volunteering the matter. If you asked flat out, "What percentage of your PhD graduates landed tenure track jobs within a year, over the past 5 years?" someone would have to come up with that. But prospective grad students don't know to ask. And departments, which gain clout and funding within a university based on their size (number of grad students and such) are unlikely to mention it when choosing students.