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May 12, 2006
Condoleezza Rice at Boston
College? I quit
By Steve Almond
An open letter to William P. Leahy, SJ, president of Boston
College.
DEAR Father Leahy,
I am writing to resign my post as an adjunct professor of
English at Boston College.
I am doing so -- after five years at BC, and with tremendous
regret -- as a direct result of your decision to invite
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to be the commencement
speaker at this year's graduation.
Many members of the faculty and student body already have
voiced their objection to the invitation, arguing that
Rice's actions as secretary of state are inconsistent with
the broader humanistic values of the university and the
Catholic and Jesuit traditions from which those values
derive.
But I am not writing this letter simply because of an
objection to the war against Iraq. My concern is more
fundamental. Simply put, Rice is a liar.
She has lied to the American people knowingly, repeatedly,
often extravagantly over the past five years, in an effort
to justify a pathologically misguided foreign policy.
The public record of her deceits is extensive. During the
ramp-up to the Iraq war, she made 29 false or misleading
public statements concerning Iraq's weapons of mass
destruction and links to Al Qaeda, according to a
congressional investigation by the House Committee on
Government Reform.
To cite one example:
In an effort to build the case for war, then-National
Security Adviser Rice repeatedly asserted that Iraq was
pursuing a nuclear weapon, and specifically seeking uranium
in Africa.
In July of 2003, after these claims were disproved, Rice
said: ''Now if there were doubts about the underlying
intelligence . . . those doubts were not communicated to the
president, the vice president, or to me."
Rice's own deputy, Stephen Hadley, later admitted that the
CIA had sent her a memo eight months earlier warning against
the use of this claim.
In the three years since the war began, Rice has continued
to misrepresent or simply ignore the truth about our deadly
adventure in Iraq.
Like the president whom she serves so faithfully, she
refuses to recognize her errors or the tragic consequences
of those errors to the young soldiers and civilians dying in
Iraq. She is a diplomat whose central allegiance is not to
the democratic cause of this nation, but absolute power.
This is the woman to whom you will be bestowing an honorary
degree, along with the privilege of addressing the
graduating class of 2006.
It is this last notion I find most reprehensible: that
Boston College would entrust to Rice the role of moral
exemplar.
To be clear: I am not questioning her intellectual gifts or
academic accomplishments. Nor her potentially inspiring role
as a powerful woman of color.
But these are not the factors by which a commencement
speaker should be judged. It is the content of one's
character that matters here -- the reverence for truth and
knowledge that Boston College purports to champion.
Rice does not personify these values; she repudiates them.
Whatever inspiring rhetoric she might present to the
graduating class, her actions as a citizen and politician
tell a different story.
Honestly, Father Leahy, what lessons do you expect her to
impart to impressionable seniors?
That hard work in the corporate sector might gain them a
spot on the board of Chevron? That they, too, might someday
have an oil tanker named after them? That it is acceptable
to lie to the American people for political gain?
Given the widespread objection to inviting Rice, I would
like to think you will rescind the offer. But that is
clearly not going to happen.
Like the administration in Washington, you appear too proud
to admit to your mistake. Instead, you will mouth a bunch of
platitudes, all of which boil down to: You don't want to
lose face.
In this sense, you leave me no choice.
I cannot, in good conscience, exhort my students to pursue
truth and knowledge, then collect a paycheck from an
institution that displays such flagrant disregard for both.
I would like to apologize to my students and prospective
students. I would also urge them to investigate the words
and actions of Rice, and to exercise their own First
Amendment rights at her speech.
Steve Almond is the author of the story collections ''The
Evil B. B. Chow" and ''My Life in Heavy Metal."
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