fooey phyllis
This is the only video floating around so far of the protest staged by students (and other attendees, it looks like) at Washington University’s commencement ceremony. The protest was over WU’s decision to award Phyllis Schlafly an honorary doctorate.
Schlafly, if you didn’t know, has made a career of traveling the country…and lecturing on why women shouldn’t have careers, because domestic life is the greatest aspiration that a woman can have and, quite appallingly, insists that there is no such thing as rape between a married couple.
During the portion of the ceremony honoring Schlafly, the students silently stood up…and turned their backs on her. And really, I can’t think of a more fitting tribute to the woman.
People will say many things about her surrounding this event. As offended as I am by some of her beliefs, probably the worst thing you can accuse her of is being a ballsy old broad. So, Dr. Phyllis, from one ballsy old broad to another: fuck you, very much, sweetie. 🙂
May 17th, 2008 at 7:48 am
WU had Schlafly give one of the Tuesday lectures (I can’t remember what the series was called) back in the late ’70s. I and others from the Student Union escorted her around campus. We treated her politely and with respect as befits a guest speaker, even though we disagreed with her (well, everyone but the Young Republicans).
A couple years later, imagine my surprise as I was driving down a road in Pittsburgh and she was talking to some radio show host about how horrible we treated her. I sincerely hope the Young Republicans heard that and switched to being Democrats.
You have to remember, conservative Christians from that era were a bit more vitriolic than they are today. I don’t know if Schlafly was one, but there was great opposition by the Religious Right to laws against child and spousal abuse because “they took away the God-given (sic) right of the husband to discipline his family” and they were also proposing Re-education Camps for gays and lesbians, with two options — change or die.
Between them and the Creationists, I nearly stopped being a Christian.
I usually donate money to WU each year. Not great amounts, but every time there’s a campaign — or even when there’s not — they call and mail me. When I saw in the on-line Student Life that they were giving her an honorary degree, I decided to not donate for a year, sending the money to some worthy group instead. I do need to sit down and write them a letter explaining why…
May 17th, 2008 at 8:53 am
What a classy, intelligent group of students. I thought it was appalling that pre-presidency George H.W. Bush spoke at my HS and we didn’t have the info or the class to protest properly. Schlafly is as bad or worse and these students made their feelings known beautifully. Sweet.
May 18th, 2008 at 10:53 pm
Hear, hear!