{"id":5488,"date":"2014-05-07T20:32:57","date_gmt":"2014-05-07T20:32:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/highplainsblogger.wordpress.com\/?p=5488"},"modified":"2014-05-07T20:32:57","modified_gmt":"2014-05-07T20:32:57","slug":"condi-rice-is-techs-gain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=5488","title":{"rendered":"Condi Rice is Tech&#039;s gain"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p>Rutgers University faculty and student body have made a mockery of academic tolerance and inclusiveness.<\/p>\n<p>How? They shunned former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as a commencement speaker. Not to worry, though. Texas Tech University has just asked her to deliver such a speech to its student body. There might be some grumbling, but Tech won&#8217;t be dissuaded from persuading Rice to accept.<\/p>\n<p>Good for Tech. Bad for Rutgers.<\/p>\n<p>http:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/opinion\/2014\/05\/05\/condoleeza-rice-rutgers-free-speech-editorials-and-debates\/8721095\/<\/p>\n<p>Rutgers protesters have done their school a serious disservice. Rice had accepted the invitation, but then backed out in the face of the protests. She must have figured there was little to be gained by igniting a potential disturbance at the New Jersey school.<\/p>\n<p>What in the world ever happened to the notion that universities are magnets for wide-ranging views, ideologies and philosophies? Don&#8217;t they imbue such things any longer in our institutions of higher education?<\/p>\n<p>One can hope that Texas Tech &#8212; which sits in the middle of strongly conservative West Texas &#8212; would welcome speakers from, say, the far left. The reason in that instance would be for precisely the same reason Rutgers should have welcomed Rice, to expose students to a full spectrum of ideas and world views.<\/p>\n<p>You&#8217;ll recall that West Texas A&amp;M University faced a similar protest some years ago when it invited former Bush administration political adviser Karl Rove to speak prior to WT&#8217;s commencement. The school held firm. Rove spoke and the students got an interesting take on the state of politics in America.<\/p>\n<p>Condi Rice is a brilliant academician. She served her country as national security adviser and as secretary of state. Her background is stellar and she is full of important perspectives.<\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s hope she accepts Texas Tech&#8217;s invitation, and let&#8217;s hope Rutgers thinks deeply about the opportunity it has lost by shooing Rice away.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rutgers University faculty and student body have made a mockery of academic tolerance and inclusiveness. How? They shunned former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as a commencement speaker. Not to worry, though. Texas Tech University has just asked her to deliver such a speech to its student body. There might be some grumbling, but &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=5488\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Condi Rice is Tech&#039;s gain<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1102,4055,4721],"class_list":["post-5488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-condi-rice","tag-rutgers-university","tag-texas-tech"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5488\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}