On the eve of their triumphant double-down drubbing of Ohio State for a third national basketball champtionship, I learn this:
In an act that was petty even by university standards, the Faculty Senate at the University of Florida has refused to award former governor Jeb Bush an honorary degree. Bush was recommended for the award by the Honorary Degrees, Distinguished Alumnus Awards and Memorials Committee, but the full Senate rejected the committee's recommendation on a 38-28 vote.
The University's president, Bernie Machen, was dismayed by the vote, which he said was "unheard of." Opponents of giving the former governor an honorary degree tried to explain their vote by saying that as governor, he had "diluted resources"--by founding three new medical schools! Oh, and he opposed race discrimination in admissions, too.
The irony is that Bush isn't even a controversial figure. He is regarded by essentially everyone as an unusually successful and effective governor. But he is a Republican. In an age when left-wing "poets," unreconstructed Communists and, needless to say, Democratic politicians routinely deliver commencement speeches and receive honorary degrees, universities are increasingly declaring themselves to be one-party states.
Is there nowhere safe from those petty liberal academics? You know who gave my commencement speech and thereby gained an honorary degree? Jed friggin' Clampet, that's who. And Jeb Bush isn't good enough? Assholes.
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