Amid protests from students, Michigan State is defending its decision to invite conservative columnist George Will to campus to speak and receive an honorary degree at the school’s December commencement ceremony.
Recommended Stories
Michigan State students — like those at Miami University — are pushing back on the speaking engagement because of a column Will wrote on sexual assault in the Washington Post last June.
Nearly 700 students are set to protest the commencement event, which takes place Saturday.
On Tuesday, university President Lou Anna K. Simon published a statement on her website explaining that the school will not disinvite Will from commencement.
“Having George Will speak at commencement does not mean I or Michigan State University agree with or endorse the statements he made in his June 6 column or any particular column he has written,” declared Simon. “It does not mean the university wishes to cause survivors of sexual assault distress. And it does not mean we are backing away from our commitment to continuously improving our response to sexual assault.”
“What it does mean is this: Great universities are committed to serving the public good by creating space for discourse and exchange of ideas, though that exchange may be uncomfortable and will sometimes challenge values and beliefs,” she continued. “There is no mandate to agree, only to serve society by allowing learning to take place. If universities do not hold onto this, we do not serve the greater good.”
Will has received plenty of blowback on college campuses for the sexual assault column. At Miami University in Ohio, nearly 1,000 students and faculty members protested a speech Will was set to deliver. The university, however, did not cancel the engagement, and Will spoke as planned.
That wasn’t the case at Scripps College, where he was disinvited from speaking after the column was published.
H/T Inside Higher Ed
