November 30, 2007
by Trevor Hunnicutt
Student leaders at Pomona College are no longer considering a speaking invitation to former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who until September served as the country’s Attorney General according to the leader of the committee that was initially considering booking him.
Kelly Schwartz ’10, the ASPC Communications Commissioner and chairperson of the Speakers Committee, said that the committee ultimately made its decision based on a consideration of price and student interest level.
“In the case of Gonzales, it was a combination of not having the funding and the impression that students would not attend this event,” she said, although the committee stopped short of an initial plan to have the ASPC Senate poll students on their interest on the subject. Gonzales’s speaking agency had asked the school to pay him $35,000 in addition to first-class accommodations.
The decision came several weeks after the Pomona Student Union and college officials came under fire for the Nov. 8 debate between libertarian Jacob Hornberger and illegal-immigration opponent Marvin Stewart. Some students and faculty objected to the debate as promoting hateful rhetoric. After opponents unsuccessfully attempted to cancel the event entirely, more than 50 members of the 5–C community protested by turning their backs to the dais.
Pomona Professor of Politics Heather Williams, for one, reacted positively to the news. Williams, who last week wrote an opinions article in The Student Life against bringing Gonzales to campus, said that it was never the right decision for the school.
“Even if the point was to invite Gonzales to campus to answer for his actions as Attorney General, let’s face it, he’s not on the lecture circuit to disclose hitherto unknown information and apologize to the public for his conduct,” she wrote in an email. “Honesty was not his m.o. when he assumed office and he stumbled and dodged through one Senate hearing after another, and it’s certainly not going to be his meal ticket now. Call me old fashioned, but I think there’s something really gross about a celebrity lecture circuit that rewards people for misconduct, scandal, and even felony crimes.”
Had Gonzales come, he would have been one of the most prominent political names to speak on campus in recent years. Gonzales was the second Attorney General for the Bush Administration, but he resigned from his post after enduring months of criticism from senators stemming from the dismissals of eight U.S. attorneys. He was succeeded recently by Michael Mukasey, formerly a federal judge in New York.
http://www.tsl.pomona.edu/?page=news&article=2851&issue=106
2 comments:
So Gonzo is too costly and few will attend, good reasons to cancel, amoung many others.
Looks like Gonzo isn't wanted at any US College, next he'll try high schools and then elementary schools if he can get some money. Gonzo has legal fees to pay and his fund raiser failed. I guess all those so called friends, now act like they never heard of Gonzo. Bush don't help him because Daddy Bush will cut him out of the will.
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