May 29, 2008

Meanwhile, Washington University Turns Back Clock on Feminism 40 Years, Awards Freedom-Hater Phyllis Schlafly Honorary Degree

Backstory: “Dr.” Phyllis Schlafly: So, Washington University awards degrees for hatred and stupidity now?

Ugly is as ugly does.

So, Washington University extended its middle finger to everyone who believes that women are, like, actual human beings (maybe even as good as men!), and awarded an honorary doctorate to Phyllis Schlafly, radical right-wing founder of the anti-feminist Eagle Forum, anti-gay crusader of the first order, singlehanded murderer of the Equal Rights Amendment, suppressor of safe and sane sex education, and militant nationalist whose xenophobia puts Adolf Hitler’s to shame, whose bitter, twisted hatred oozes through her facade of “morality” in a perpetually pinched visage, utterly criminal fashion sense, and helmet hair that can’t possibly be on purpose.

Yeah, there was a protest (and we applaud the students and faculty who participated):

Wearing white armbands, Washington University students and faculty staged a silent protest as conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly received an honorary degree at Friday’s commencement.

Hundreds got up from their seats, turned their backs to the stage, and stood silently as the 83-year-old Schlafly was bestowed an honorary doctorate of humane letters. …

Schlafly, who earlier in the week had called the protesters “a bunch of losers,” told The Associated Press on Friday that her proudest accomplishment was defeating the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s. “Nixon, Carter, Hollywood, were for it,” she said. “We took them all on.”

She called university women’s studies departments “feminist propaganda masquerading as academics.” …

…but, despite the protesters’ best efforts, this is a stain on Washington University — and Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton’s justification for honoring this anti-freedom Nazi is laughable in its lameness:

… Our long-standing process for awarding the honorary degree was followed: Mrs. Schlafly was nominated by a member of the community and was reviewed by the Board’s Honorary Degree Committee. The Committee included faculty, students, trustees and administrators. After two meetings, Mrs. Schlafly and other nominees were recommended unanimously for consideration at the full Board meeting. The full Board voted to award the honorary degree at the May 2007 meeting.

Following the public announcement of the honorary degrees, many in the University community have called for the University to rescind that offer, stating that Mrs. Schlafly is associated with some views, opinions and statements that are inconsistent with the tolerant and inclusive values of the Washington University community. Personally, I do not endorse her views or opinions, and in many instances, I strongly disagree with them.

However, after further consultation with members of the University’s Board of Trustees, the University has concluded that it will fulfill its commitment to award the degree to Mrs. Schlafly. I apologize for the anguish this decision has caused to many members of our community.

That “apology” is just another way of saying: “I’m sorry if you were offended.” Not “I’m sorry we did it,” but “I’m sorry you didn’t like what we did.”

In bestowing this degree, the University is not endorsing Mrs. Schlafly’s views or opinions; rather, it is recognizing an alumna of the University whose life and work have had a broad impact on American life and have sparked widespread debate and controversies that in many cases have helped people better formulate and articulate their own views about the values they hold.

Oh, well, then, that’s different. Since a “life and work [that] have had a broad impact on American life and have sparked widespread debate and controversies that in many cases have helped people better formulate and articulate their own views about the values they hold” is all there is to your criteria for bestowing honorary degrees, you may as well honor Don Black.

And, Mark, you can save the malarkey that “the University is not endorsing Mrs. Schlafly’s views or opinions.” Giving a degree to anybody (think of your own undergrads) is the university’s confirmation that the honoree has fulfilled followed the university’s curriculum and met the university’s requirements for graduation. And the honoree will forever represent the values of the university.

At Commencement, Trustee Emerita Margaret Bush Wilson has volunteered to read the citation to award the degree to Mrs. Schlafly. As the first woman of color to serve as the national chair of the NAACP, the second woman of color admitted to practice law in Missouri, and as a prominent St. Louis civil rights attorney for more than 40 years, she provides a strong voice for the importance of tolerance and discourse as hallmarks of the Washington University community.

Like bringing up Margaret Bush Wilson — a female African-American — is supposed to soften the blow? Geez, Mark, could you be any more obvious in your tokenism? You sound like the kind of guy who would argue against gay rights by citing Andrew Sullivan as if he represented all gay people.

Being black and/or female and/or a civil rights activist doesn’t automatically make one wise.

In the midst of this controversy, I want to affirm my personal and the University’s institutional commitment to strengthening diversity and inclusiveness and to improving gender balance.

OK, so when are you going to honor Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon? How about posthumous degrees for Barbara Jordan and Harvey Milk?

Additionally, I have made a commitment that the University will review the process for awarding honorary degrees and will propose appropriate changes.

Such as?

Washington University is home to students and faculty from all walks of life, from most systems of religious belief and political thought, and from all corners of the world. Yet we do not require these widely diverse individuals to agree with one another. We are stronger because disagreement allows us the opportunity to speak as individuals and as advocates for sometimes widely divergent agendas. …

Mark, there is right and there is wrong. Washington University was clearly wrong — and all you’re doing here is dragging out that tired old plea for tolerance of intolerance. Are you familiar with Karl Popper?

There’s more of Wrighton’s non-apology at the link. More of the same, that is — it’s nothing more or less than we expected.

As for post-game reactions, this one — by some clueless bot called Bob Ellis — is typical of the Radical Religious Right; notice the wild hyperbole, equating the Washington U. protesters with international terrorists:

From Saint Louis Today…

Some applauded while Schlafly was hooded. But about a third of the graduating students draped in the school’s green and black robes turned their backs to her, along with some faculty members sitting on the stage behind her. Many family members in the audience also took part.

Three faculty members made the extra point of walking off the stage and then turning their backs from the audience.

A reaction like this might be appropriate if a university had invited or honored someone like, say Saddam Hussein, or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, or Kim Jong-Il or the leader of some terrorist group. Yet somehow I doubt that there would be the slightest bit of angst over such a guest at this school.

Of course, this writer is the typical idiot who believes everyone to the left of Genghis Khan is “anti-American” and “vehemently hate[s] our country,” and fears the Endtimes of America.

But here’s the best part:

I had the honor of meeting Schlafly last October in Washington D.C. She is such a nice lady…

Yeah, and George W. Bush is such a good Christian. (And I hear Hitler loved his dog, too.) ROFL!

Now for a word from the reality-based community, per Bobbie Francis, chair of the ERA Task Force of the National Council of Women’s Organizations (NCWO):

WU alumna Schlafly (1944 A.B., 1978 J.D.) has made a name and probably a fair bit of money for herself by writing, speaking, and organizing against a spectrum of issues she condemns as feminist or liberal — the ERA, Title IX (prohibiting sex discrimination in education), reproductive rights, comprehensive sex education, the right of gays and lesbians to adopt children or teach in public schools, the United Nations, and the teaching of evolution, to name a few. …

It is unlikely that the nation’s most visible anti-feminist in the second half of the 20th century remained barefoot while pregnant and raising six children, since during those same years, beginning in the early 1950s, she was also running unsuccessfully for Congress (1952, 1970), presiding (as she still does) over the conservative Eagle Forum she founded four decades ago, writing The Phyllis Schlafly Report and a syndicated column, and broadcasting commentaries on hundreds of radio stations.

She has traveled the country organizing, strategizing, writing, and speaking in opposition to women’s rights and many other issues, but she admits to no contradiction or hypocrisy in telling other women they should not have families and careers at the same time.

Her arguments against the ERA demonstrate the degree to which she is no friend of the truth.

The ERA, she says, would require the denial of Social Security benefits to housewives and widows. As a lawyer, she must know it simply means that such benefits would be conferred in sex-neutral terms (”homemaker,” “surviving spouse”).

The ERA, she says, means “abortion on demand.” She must know that the ERAs or equal rights guarantees currently in 21 state constitutions have never been used for that purpose.

The ERA, she says, would compel courts to approve same-sex marriages. She must know that the ERA simply says constitutional rights shall be held equally by citizens without regard to sex, and states with ERAs in their constitutions have been able to declare marriage a contract between a man and a woman.

The ERA, she says, would make women eligible for the draft. She must know that Congress already has the power to draft women and was considering the possibility of drafting nurses as the Vietnam conflict ended.

At age 83, Schlafly is still preaching her threadbare anti-equality gospel on campuses, at legislative hearings, and elsewhere. If she went on about race the way she does about gender, it would be obvious that her prejudiced views are often the equivalent of Holocaust denial or hate speech. …

Feminism, she told a Bates College audience, “is incompatible with marriage and motherhood” and is “teaching women to be victims.” She denies a married woman’s legal right to claim sexual assault by her husband: “By getting married, the woman has consented to sex, and I don’t think you can call it rape.”

Women should not be permitted to do jobs traditionally held by men, such as firefighter, soldier, or construction worker, she says, because of their “inherent physical inferiority.” …

Of course Washington University has the right to bestow an honorary degree on anyone it chooses. But recipients should be people who have contributed to making the world better in a professionally acceptable way, according to at least minimal standards of intellectual honesty.

Judging by the negative reaction to Schlafly’s selection, including an online protest site on Facebook, it is appropriate that Washington University will derive more guilt than benefit by association with this choice. Only by withholding the degree and publicly acknowledging its error could the university have salvaged even a shred of academic integrity out of the situation.

The Board insisted on proceeding today, however, they really should have made their presentation as follows:

“And so, Phyllis Schlafly, in acknowledgment but not in honor of your numerous activities over six decades in the misrepresentation of facts about and the organized obstruction of progress in social and political justice, equality of opportunity, and the guarantee of full citizenship status to over one-half of the nation’s population, Washington University mistakenly awards you the honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters.”