PFLAG Decries Honorary Doctorate for Schlafly  | News | Advocate.com

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May 09, 2008
PFLAG Decries Honorary Doctorate for Schlafly

Gay rights advocates are asking Washington University administrators to reconsider honoring antigay activist Phyllis Schlafly with an honorary doctorate at the school's commencement ceremony. Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, along with many students and faculty, is urging the school not to honor Schlafly at the May 16 ceremony in St. Louis.

"Phyllis Schlafly has spent much of her life on a crusade to roll back opportunities for millions of people, including many of the students at Washington University," Dean L. Rosen, president of PFLAG's St. Louis chapter, said in a statement on Thursday. "She has consistently opposed full equality for women and for gays and lesbians and has pushed her anti-equality agenda in our schools and our state houses. As parents and allies of GLBT young people, we are alarmed that Washington University would honor someone who has such a long track record of attacking our children."

Despite having a gay son, Schlafly, founder of the "pro-family" Eagle Forum, has been a longtime opponent of LGBT rights and feminism. The Washington University alumna has also attacked public schools for allowing affirmative portrayals of LGBT people in curricula.

Students and faculty have not asked university officials to disinvite Schlafly from speaking at the ceremony; they simply disagree with her receiving an honorary degree. As of Thursday, more than 2,000 members had joined a Facebook.com group opposing Schlafly's doctorate.

Mary Ann Dzuback, director of the women's and gender studies department at WU, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch it would be "grossly inappropriate" for Washington University to honor Schlafly with a degree.

The school said in a statement on Tuesday that Schlafly was chosen because it honors people "who have become a part of the broad public discourse on vital issues of the times -- whether or not the majority of those within its community agree with the views expressed by those individuals." The statement continues to list past honorees, "including civil rights leaders Jesse Jackson and Julian Bond; political leaders as diverse as Madeleine Albright, John Major, Patricia Schroeder, John C. Danforth, Paul Simon, and Richard Gephardt; educational leaders such as Ruth Simmons and Henry Louis Gates; and members of the media including Tom Friedman, George Will, Tim Russert, and this year's commencement speaker, Chris Matthews." (The Advocate)

Reader Comments

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  • Name: David
    Date posted: 2008-05-13 3:02 AM
    Hometown: Syracuse

    Comment:

    I agree with Harry. It is wrong to equate Schlafly with other honorary degree recipients like the race-hustling Jesse Jackson or partial-birth abortion defender Patricia Schroeder. Phyllis Schlafly is much better than they are.

  • Name: Harry
    Date posted: 2008-05-10 10:34 PM
    Hometown: Brooklyn, NY

    Comment:

    The simple fact that the WU administration would equate Schlafly with the other distinguished recipients of its honorary degrees shows how morally blind they are.

  • Name: Mike Murphy
    Date posted: 2008-05-10 10:21 AM
    Hometown: St. Louis

    Comment:

    We've now learned that the balloting process inside the WU Board of Trustees was anything but open and honest. A sanitized biography of Schlafly was circulated an objections by student members of the Board were shouted down and the vote was not unanimous. Email Chancellor Mark Wrighton and urge him to rescind his invitation to Schlafly: wrighton@wustl.edu

  • Name: Jeff
    Date posted: 2008-05-10 12:01 AM
    Hometown: Seattle

    Comment:

    What a base degredation of the degrees of those graduates that studied and earned them!! If I was graduating at that commencement, I would loudly refuse to take the stage to accept my diploma, instead insisting to recieve it at another time when the "guest graduate" was miles away from the university. How repulsive can the University be?

  • Name: Ross
    Date posted: 2008-05-09 11:02 PM
    Hometown: Phoenix

    Comment:

    The grads should turn their backs on her if she speaks and gets a degree. My thoughts and prayers are with her son who must live with this terrible burden.

  • Name: Robert D Schaffer
    Date posted: 2008-05-09 8:08 PM
    Hometown: Clinton NY

    Comment:

    How many students will make a statement upon receiving their diploma: a statement deploring what "their" college has done that shames them and degrades their degree? How many faculty will demonstrate their disapproval. Are we to infer that the students and faculty really have no problem with this irrational act? Shlafley doesn't disserve a diploma, but rather a pie in the face.

  • Name: M. Corby
    Date posted: 2008-05-09 7:27 PM
    Hometown: Jacksonville FL

    Comment:

    What a great Mother's Day gift to Ms. Schlafy. She certainly is some mother.

  • Name: eric1949
    Date posted: 2008-05-09 6:59 PM
    Hometown: Pontiac

    Comment:

    Why not honor Theodore Kaczynski? He's a both scholar and social critic of sorts. I believe he authored the Unabomber Manifesto!

  • Name: a dooling
    Date posted: 2008-05-09 6:33 PM
    Hometown: Avon, Ohio

    Comment:

    This is a proverbial hate crime against gay people. This woman is more than just "nuts". She is dangerous. Her audience eats up what she tells them to believe. I guess the University wanted to make a political statement, one we all should remember for future reference.

  • Name: Richard Johnson
    Date posted: 2008-05-09 3:57 PM
    Hometown: Chicago

    Comment:

    An honorary slap in the face is more appropriate!

  • Name: james
    Date posted: 2008-05-09 3:10 PM
    Hometown: new york city

    Comment:

    daer university are you nuts???????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  • Name: George
    Date posted: 2008-05-09 2:36 PM
    Hometown: Garden City, MI

    Comment:

    To honor Schlafly is reprehensible at best. I wouldn't even want her to speak at my commencement but that's another issue. But to honor her in anyway when she has continually denied her own rights and the rights of her own flesh and blood is despicable and has no place in academia or any other public forum for that matter.

  • Name: robin murez
    Date posted: 2008-05-09 11:44 AM
    Hometown: los angeles

    Comment:

    Honorring Phyllis Shaffley is tantemount to honoring a Nazi. Both created a dialog, but dialogs that proport hate are not those to be honored.

  • Name: Val Thogmartin
    Date posted: 2008-05-09 9:47 AM
    Hometown: Columbus OH

    Comment:

    I cannot believe an institution of higher learning would try to justify giving an honorary doctorate to someone who is so vehemently opposed to human rights as Phyllis Shlaffly. As an older gay man, I have had to witness the cruelty inflicted bythis right wing hate monger for too long. Now to even think Washington University would give her any kind of recognition is deplorable. What are they thinking? I agree with an earlier comment. Why not give honorary doctorates to Hitler or Dubya. Giving her this kind of recognition only works to further her rantings of hate. Washington University, you should be ashamed!

  • Name: Frenchgerman
    Date posted: 2008-05-09 4:44 AM
    Hometown: Paris

    Comment:

    "... The school said in a statement on Tuesday that Schlafly was chosen because it honors people "who have become a part of the broad public discourse on vital issues of the times ..." why not giving a honorary degree to Hitler, Staline or GW Bush ?

  • Name: Philip Washington
    Date posted: 2008-05-09 12:30 AM
    Hometown: Stillwater, Ok

    Comment:

    Clearly she's a nutter. Any woman who speaks against her own right to equality obviously has a few screws loose. I mean it would be best to not give her the doctorate. But, if it's deemed necessary, let her have it. It's not like an honorary doctorate actually gives her some sort of credential, it's just paper, like toilet paper.

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