No class: ASU's Obama slight

President Obama will give Arizona State University the rare if not unprecedented honor of having a sitting president speak at its commencement. ASU, however, refuses to give Obama the typical recognition accorded such high-powered visitors: an honorary degree. I have searched the "Information Center" in vain for this rather huge story, but it obviously remains a supplicant to the propaganda organs of Tempe Normal. The world knows, however, from stories on Huffington Post and Politico. It's been on national television.

ASU, widely known as "the Desert Ivy," deemed Obama's accomplishments insufficient to merit an honorary degree. That mediocre diploma mill -- you've probably never even heard of it -- the University of Notre Dame is granting Obama a degree. In reality, perhaps Obama did not attend enough keggers or spend enough time oogling the coeds sunbathing outside the dorms or walking saucily by Hayden Library to qualify.

The more than 3,300 comments from around the world on HuffPo are devastating. Among them: "Arizona State??? Well, that's one way to get your name in the news and raise your admission levels. NOT!!!." "This is the proof African Americans needed to know for certain that racism is also rooted in the academia of the country's highest educational institutions." "As ASU alumni I am thoroughly disgusted!...If Lattie Coor were still president - this more than likely never have happened." "This is an incredible act on the part of ASU. I would love the see the body of work that the six member honorary committee has produced in their lives so far. Something tells me it would pale in comparison to what President Obama has done so far in his life. Shame on you ASU. Why did you invite him if you were going to insult him?" "What an insult to an extremely accomplished US President. Obama has done more in 2+ months than his predecessor did in 8 years! This does not surprise me, however. Wasn't AZ one of the last states to recognize the MLK holiday?"

As to the committee that decided against granting the degree...sure. The faculty at ASU are less powerful than the teachers' lounge at Kenilworth School. Michael Crow runs the joint with an iron hand, and there's some hidden agenda. Perhaps trying to appease the screams of the Kookocracy or wealthy Republican John Sidney McCain III that Obama would have been invited in the first place. I wonder if ASU realizes how much damage it has done to itself, and to the state, by this small and pathetic act. As JFK once remarked about Richard Nixon: "No class."

One of my sources says the "Information Center" had a brief mention of the news, and it was quickly expunged from the site. (Perhaps it will be forced by events to report now -- and it should make Republic subscribers wonder how much news that doesn't rise to the level of national embarrassment/scandal they're not getting). To its credit, the much diminished East Valley Tribune did editorialize on the issue, pointing out ASU's hypocrisy.

Arizona remains amazingly inward looking, with its most important media source cowering before the local bigs. It was this dynamic that contributed to the state's sleepwalk off the economic cliff. Most Zonies don't seem to realize that when Arizona and Phoenix are in the national and world news, it is not for sunshine, resorts and really really really great deals on houses in Maricopa. It is for the racist sheriff, the kidnapping capital of America, serial killings and rape, being the arms merchant to the brutal cartels of Mexico, and now being the place that committed such a graceless and tone-deaf slight against America's first African-American president. (Gee, you would think the ASU bigs might worry about those DOD grants to the Bioweapons, ooops, Biodesign Institute.)

Obama will react with his usual grace. And he can do without the ASU degree. Why would the leader of the Free World want a credential to work in a call center, anyway?

WATCH: Daily Show at ASU.

Comments

[eclecticdog]

Take heart. I saw on the news this morning that Notre Dame students are dissing the President for his stand on abortion (it's not very Catholic of him).

As a fellow ASU alum, I too am ashamed. Crow is no doubt angling for additional funding for the university from the statehouse Kooks. Nothing happens at ASU without his buy-in. But ASU has a long pattern of humiliating voices that are not Kooks. I know a professor (long now passed) who opposed nuclear power and caught endless grief from the university administration for it -- ending his long successful career in a hovel in the basement not big enough for him or his books. I suspect ASU will be duly rewarded by right-wing "think" tanks and the Kookacracy.

[Emil Pulsifer]

Possibly President Obama failed to have enough conversations with Michael Crow. "You gotta invest in the university, capiche?"

[AccidentalExurban]

Montini's blog is all I can find "locally" on it. Seems simply to be an effort to stir the pot:

http://www.azcentral.com/members/Blog/EJMontini/

[krazy bill]

Ahhhhhh!
The unbearable tightness of whiteness!

[Dan]

Once again, AZ is in the news for all the wrong reasons. If ASU doesn't reverse this decision, my next ASU Alumni Association fund raising plea gets returned with no check and a note. According to Politico it looks like Crow is rethinking this mistake, saying that they haven't really made a decision. If that's so, then why were ASU's spokespeople all over the news today explaining the rebuff? Methinks Crow is hearing from some wealthy donors, and he realizes that he's turned the university into an even bigger laughing stock.

[Emil Pulsifer]

Here's a development: the Arizona Republic finally published a story on the controversy:

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2009/04/11/20090411Obama0411.html

The azcentral.com website also carries a link to a story dated just a day before, which didn't appear in the print edition and which came from www.politico.com:

http://www.azcentral.com/news/election/president/articles/2009/04/10/20090410obama0410asu.html

It's interesting to contrast the handling of the two stories.

In the print story in the Arizona Republic, Crow is quoted as saying that ASU has a policy of not giving honorary degrees to sitting politicians or to donors. No challenge is raised to this statement.

Crow seems to claim that he himself instituted such a policy "when I took office", though offering no evidence other than his own word of such a policy shift. One wonders what the record itself shows in the years since.

The Politico story, by contrast, note a number of politicians (some of them from Arizona) and big donors who have received honorary degrees from ASU.

[koreyel]

Jon,

I'll see your devastating putdown:

"Why would the leader of the Free World want a credential to work in a call center, anyway?"

And raise you one rejoinder:

"Especially when India does call centers better anyhow...

[artful codger]

Checking the ASU web site, I found numerous comments, all negatgive, none positive. Some indicated they would no longer donate to ASU and some even said they would remove the university from their wills. In these tough economic times, Crow is slitting the throat of the cow that overpays him. I am one who has discontinued all dontation and will not rewnew my membership in the alumni association, something I've never been terribly proud of anyway. Crow must go! Take a hike, Mike!

[KB]

You guys are all sheep who've read too much into the hype. I sincerely hope that you all will realize this one day and stop worrying about stupid stuff like this when were still in a terrible recession and have troops dieing in Iraq.

Grow up this is just another one of those stories to distract you from the real problems.

[Derek Neighbors]

"I wonder if ASU realizes how much damage it has done to itself, and to the state, by this small and pathetic act."

Seriously? The damage done will last about 2 weeks and the amount of press gained would have cost a lot more. The whole concept of honorary degrees is bullshit anyways.