Anti-American speakers have no place on campus

Publication Date: 03/29/2007

As a 1995 graduate of the political science program, I am very much dismayed to learn that the department is helping to underwrite an on-campus appearance by Cindy Sheehan next month.

There is nothing at all wrong with the department assisting financially to host a forum at which a learned, accomplished and reasonable speaker will appear to discuss controversial issues and interact with students. Yet the department not only wastes valuable resources in helping to host someone like Ms. Sheehan, it insults the intelligence of Purdue students and members of the Greater Lafayette community by lending the prestige of the University to an individual of such low quality.

Since first attracting media attention with her protests and outlandish demands, Ms. Sheehan has embarrassed herself by word and deed. She has collected tens of thousands of dollars acting as a ventriloquist for her dead son, who willingly joined the armed services and may or may not have agreed with what she is doing "in his name." She has said the war on terrorism is nothing more than George Bush doing the bidding of a Jewish cabal, putting her in league with David Duke, among others. She has publicly embraced a dictator.

Ms. Sheehan is but the most visible clown in a three-ring circus of incoherent anti-American and anti-Israeli nonsense that has no business on any serious college campus. There are plenty of articulate, intelligent voices throughout the nation that would welcome a chance to travel to Purdue and discuss their views against the war on terrorism and President Bush. Moreover, if the political science department is interested in hearing from an articulate mother of a man who laid down his life for the cause of freedom, they should look in their own backyard.

Matt May

Alumnus