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Cap & gown poltroonery

By Michael J. Smith on Friday May 2, 2008 06:36 PM

"Pedagogue," in classical Greek, means a slave who accompanies your kid back and forth to school -- literally, a boy-herder.

The slavish character of the profession has not changed. Examples always abound. Here's one of the more recent:

Rev. Wright's honorary degree canceled by Northwestern

May 1 (Bloomberg) -- Northwestern University withdrew an invitation for the Reverend Jeremiah Wright to receive an honorary degree at this year's commencement.

Wright... was selected to be honored at the June ceremony in Evanston, Illinois, on the recommendation of faculty committees, Alan Cubbage, vice president for university relations, said in a statement.

"In light of the controversy around Dr. Wright and to ensure the celebratory character of commencement not be affected, the university has withdrawn its invitation to Dr. Wright,'' Cubbage said.

"Celebratory," huh? What exactly are they celebrating? Perhaps it's that bold fearless commitment to open inquiry and freedom of thought on which the servile, cringing, boy- and girl-herders of Academe so groundlessly pride themselves.

Comments (2)

mjosef:

To be fair, this academy fatwa was issued by Northwestern University, a fourth-tier evangelical paper mill -wait, no, I retract that, this was indeed Northwestern University with an endowment of 23 gazillion, endowed chair professors of the very highest think-tankery - hey, have a great celebration, kids! Give that degree to Friedman, Thomas J. Esq., and let him intone to the seated golfers - that's what the absurd "ivy" college I was sentenced to for four stupid years did.
Northwestern should just handout a lifetime's supply of anti-depressants along with the sheepskin to these graduates - the little pills are the only way these baby "graduates" are going to make it through their corporate predations.

Michael Hureaux:

Given that institutions as "prestigious" as Notre Dame have handed out honorary degrees to such stellar scholars of human achievement as the actor Bruce Willis and George W. for years now, the honorary degree isn't much more than a handfull of chump change anyway.

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