EDITORIAL: The intolerant left’s heckler’s veto on campus Illiberal professors silence dissenting commencement speakers

EDITORIAL: The intolerant left’s heckler’s veto on campus

Illiberal professors silence dissenting commencement speakers

FILE - In this March 15, 2014 file photo, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice peaks at the California Republican Party 2014 Spring Convention in Burlingame, Calif. Rice has decided against delivering the commencement address at Rutgers University following protests by some faculty and students over her role in the Iraq War. Rice said in a statement Saturday, May 3, 2014 that she informed Rutgers President Robert Barchi that she was declining the invitation. She said her involvement had “become a distraction for the university community” at a “time of joyous celebration for the graduates and their families.”(AP Photo/Ben Margot

, File)

By THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Thursday, May 8, 2014

This must be commencement season on campus, because the heckler’s veto is back. When one of the nation’s most expensive colleges and universities invites the rare Republican to address the ceremonies, the rude and the thuggish are guaranteed to shout him out of the cloistered hall.

Condoleezza Rice bowed out as graduation speaker at Rutgers University amid protests by a small but noisy gaggle of intolerant leftist students and professors offended by the former secretary of state’s role in the Iraq war.

Miss Rice was as usual more gracious than her foes. “Commencement should be a time of joyous celebration for the graduates and their families,” she said, announcing her withdrawal. “Rutgers’ invitation to me to speak has become a distraction for the university community at this very special time.”