Giuliani degree sparks uproar in Middlebury
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By ED BARNA Herald Correspondent - Published: April 30, 2005
MIDDLEBURY — The selection of former New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani to receive an honorary degree and deliver the commencement address May 22 at Middlebury College has sparked a campus controversy that led to the resignation of the editor of the student newspaper.
The controversy has spilled beyond the campus, thanks to the school newspaper printing a retouched picture which appeared at first glance to be Hitler giving the Nazi salute but on closer inspection had Giuliani's face.
Unfavorable reaction came from sources around the country, college president Ron Liebowitz sent a campus-wide message denouncing the action, and the student editor of The Campus resigned.
Enough inquiries about Giuliani came in from alumni and parents that Eric Davis, secretary of the college and the administration's official link with the Honorary Degree Committee, wrote a letter explaining how Giuliani was selected.
"Each spring, a call for nominations for the following year's commencement speaker is sent out to members of the junior class, the faculty and the staff," Davis said. "Those nominations are reviewed by a committee that consists of four students, three members of the Board of Trustees, and three members of the faculty."
His letter added, "The committee, which is chaired by one of its trustee members, forwards a slate of nominees to the president, who then invites one of the persons on the list to be the commencement speaker. Mayor Giuliani's name was submitted as a nominee last spring by members of this year's graduating class, who pointed to his leadership after Sept. 11 as a reason for recognizing him with an honorary degree and inviting him to be the commencement speaker."
Speaking to The Campus when Giuliani's selection was announced in March, Davis said, "One reason his commencement speech will be especially meaningful to students in the Class of 2005 is that the Sept. 11 attacks took place on what was the second day of classes for the current seniors."
To the parents and alumni he wrote, "I realize that this information will not change your views about Giuliani, but I did want to let you know that it was students who submitted his name to the committee."
Not all students are in agreement. The Campus has been and continues to be the focus of debate.
The students may have suggested Giuliani because they will never forget the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, but the college's official announcement also praised Giuliani's record as mayor of New York City between 1993 and 1997.
"When Giuliani entered the job, more than a million New Yorkers were on welfare and violent crime and crack cocaine had devastated entire neighborhoods," the college said. "During Giuliani's eight years as mayor, New York City's crime rate fell by 57 percent, and the FBI designated New York as America's safest large city. Whole neighborhoods were redeveloped and 691,000 people were moved off of welfare."
But Middlebury senior Albert "Ben" Gore of Maryland said in the next issue of the paper that he could not forget how Giuliani's much-praised clean-up of crime and homelessness in New York City actually took place.
His commentary, next to which the "Hitler" picture was inserted by the editorial staff without his knowledge, was titled: "Giuliani is a punk, un-invite him."
Gore contended that much of the 1993-97 crime drop "was due to the overall drop in the use of crack cocaine during the 1990s and not his policies." He added that some of the decline "was based on a campaign of brutality and intimidation against the poor and non-white inhabitants of the city."
Giuliani's neighborhood redevelopment was "gentrification and represents the efforts of the rich to displace the poor," Gore said. "Giuliani, far from being a moral authority and important symbol for this country, is an authoritarian, a racist and a shill for a president that many, if not most, students here find morally reprehensible."
The Hitlerian picture may have taken off from Gore's statement that "to many people who were not in the elite class, (Giuliani) was coming to be considered a fascist."
Gore was not alone in this view. Ellen Oxfeld, professor of sociology and anthropology, also criticized the college administration in The Campus for glossing over controversial elements of Giuliani's career.
Meanwhile, controversy over the "Hitler" image that ran March 17 had eclipsed the debate over Giuliani himself.
National media outlets picked up the story, and Liebowitz stepped in on March 25 to make it clear that the incident should not reflect on the college as a whole.
"The decision of The Campus' editorial staff to include such a photo reflects a gross misunderstanding of history, let alone of Mr. Giuliani's record," Liebowitz said. "It also reflects an unacceptable and embarrassing ignorance of the magnitude of Hitler's crimes against humanity."
On March 31, editor-in-chief Andrea Gissing resigned. In that issue of the paper, she apologized for the picture and wrote: "The role of the editor-in-chief is to give the final seal of approval on the entire content of the paper and I have failed to meet the responsibilities of the position in this regard."
Gissing added, "Because I cannot say with any certainty that if given the same situation all over again I would have decided any differently, I therefore am stepping down as editor-in-chief in order to preserve what is left of The Campus' good standing and credibility."
The following week, the paper printed a letter from Gissing's father praising her decision "in an era when business executives, community leaders, politicians of all persuasions, religious leaders, entertainment and sports figures and yes — even educators — are quick to shirk any and all responsibility for their actions."
But also on March 31, Giuliani found an unlikely defender: Middlebury junior Andrew Carnabuci, a Democrat from a New York City suburb. He decried the way a "general mood of seething indignation" had led to suggestions that there should be a different graduation speaker.
Carnabuci said Giuliani's homeless policy in fact had implemented the suggestions of a 1990 report by Democrat Andrew Cuomo, who at that point was working for a homeless advocacy group.
"New York City now places its homeless in clean, safe shelters where they receive job training and can work towards their GEDs," Carnabuci said.
As for police brutality, he cited Amnesty International figures showing that in the 10 years prior to the Giuliani administration, police brutality in New York City had been steadily rising at 30 to 40 percent per year.
"In 1995, the second year of Giuliani's administration, it rose 16 percent; in 1996, it rose 0 percent," Carnabuci said.
The campus opposition to Giuliani coming was "reactionary, knee-jerk liberalism," Carnabuci said. The word "fascist" would be better applied to those who "mindlessly chant the party line on every issue and lash out venomously at everything and everyone that demurs from it," he said.
Contacted for comment Wednesday, Carnabuci said, "You can't chase people out of the marketplace of ideas because you don't like what they say."
No one knows how the controversy will affect this year's graduation ceremony, but it seems safe to say that the neighborhood won't be as peaceable as it was four years ago when Fred Rogers was the speaker.
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