Giving an honorary degree at the graduate commencement to Andrew Card, the former White House Chief of Staff for President George W. Bush from 2000 to 2006, and the creator and head of the White House Iraq Group, which coordinated the Bush administration campaign to sell the invasion of Iraq to the American public, would be a terrible and tragic mistake.
Those with authority to award the honorary degree - namely the Board of Trustees of the University of Massachusetts system - need to meet immediately to consider revoking the offer of the honorary degree. And President Jack Wilson, Chancellor John Lombardi and Graduate School Dean John Mullins, on behalf of the students, faculty and staff of UMass whom they serve, need to urge the Trustees to rescind the degree.
News of the honorary degree immediately provoked a furor on this campus. Emergency protest meetings have been held. Petitions are circulating online and around campus. "Not Wanted" posters are being posted on doors and bulletin boards. This week, numerous University departments, governing bodies and organizations will pass resolutions against it.
A degree for a political figure of such controversy necessarily invites dissent and disruption of commencement itself. For two years, I looked forward to receiving my Master's degree. Now, instead of enjoying the ceremony and celebrating with family, friends and colleagues, we graduates will have a protest - hardly a way to finish our education and work at UMass.
Why protest Card? He may be a nice guy - I'm sure he plays a great game of golf with Board of Trustees Chair Steve Tocco and other top administrators who know Card personally - but the policies he propagated and represents can't be separated from the degree. And unfortunately, his record as Bush's Chief of Staff, and his coordination of the public relations campaign to sell an unnecessary invasion of Iraq to the American public based on manipulated, manufactured or outright false intelligence regarding Iraq's alleged weapons programs or ties to terrorists, completely contravenes the fundamental commitment to integrity and honesty in research and scholarship on which the University and academic endeavor itself rests.
Awarding an honorary degree to Card is equivalent to awarding an honors degree to undergraduates who plagiarize or invent sources for term papers. The only difference is that Card and those he served (Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith) plagiarized on matters of war and peace - and the result? The unnecessary deaths of 3,300 American soldiers (including two UMass students, engineering student and Marine Corps Lance Corporal Eric P. Valdepenas, 21, and economics Ph.D. candidate and Army Staff Sergeant Ayman A. Taha, 31) and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, the physical and psychological maiming of tens of thousands of American soldiers and many more Iraqis, the draining of the treasury by nearly $450 billion (and counting), and the violation of the Constitution and international laws. A degree for the man who was the public face of a dishonest administration undermines the credibility and legitimacy of our institution itself. We might as well dismantle the University the day after he receives the degree.
Indeed, Card is not even eligible for the honorary degree according to University policy. University of Massachusetts Policy T93-060, "Policy on Awarding Honorary Degrees," stipulates that "Candidates for honorary degrees shall be persons of great accomplishment and high ethical standards who exemplify the ideals of the University of Massachusetts."
University administrators could have guessed that a degree for Card would seriously disrupt our graduate commencement if they had attended Card's lecture in April, the opening event of the "Talking Politics" series sponsored by Donahue Institute and the Political Science department. Dozens of students held signs denouncing Card and staged a "die-in" in front of the stage while he showered students with platitudes about political participation. When finally asked about Iraq during the subsequent question-and-answer session of softball questions from college Republicans and Democrats about 2008, Card recycled old allegations that the U.S. had to invade Iraq because the Iraqi government (a secular Sunni government) was harboring one terrorist, Al-Zarqawi (a fundamentalist). Not even Bush says this anymore. Magically, as the invasion turned to occupation and counter-insurgency in 2004, the official rationale for the invasion and occupation shifted from WMDS and terrorists to instilling democracy and saving Iraqis from themselves. Card seems a bit behind on his talking points and spin.
But, in fact, the Board of Trustees made the decision to award Card an honorary degree months before his April lecture. Truly, the honorary degree seems to have been awarded as a political favor by University administrators within or close to state and national GOP leaders (Card was considering running for president in '08). The University should not play politics with our commencement or with honorary degrees.
Justin Jackson is a UMass graduate student. He can be reached at jfjln@yahoo.com.
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