Well, it was interesting. They conferred the honorary degree upon Ashcroft and then he gave his speech. It was short, sweet, and actually a good speech. Some students protested by holding up issues of the Index (our paper) with the articles about the controversy and by refusing to applaud, but not horrible. Most people did clap and breathed a sigh of relief. And then...
He decided that he felt the need to defend his choices as United States Attorney General thanks to all the controversy. What had been a short and sweet speech turned into a loooong political diatribe about how security enhances liberty and the choices he made made us more free blah blah blah...
Some yahoos behind me were incredibly rude and disruptive. I did not agree with everything he had to say, but agree with those who said that as a liberal arts and sciences school we should be able to listen respectfully to all sides of the issue and make informed decisions. The guys behind me were making incredibly crude comments, loud noises, etc. We all breathed a sigh of relief when Ashcroft finally shut up.
Other than that it was a nice ceremony, about 2 hours. We all got a kick out of our Master's Hoods. None of us could figure out how they went on. We were joking that that was the final test to get your Master's: to graduate you had to figure out how to put on the hood.
I'll post some pictures tomorrow.
