Tuesday, May 19, 1998
Newt Gingrich to talk at UCSD
COMMENCEMENT: Speaker will deliver commencement address, despite
profuse faculty, student protests
By Michael Weiner
Daily Bruin Staff
Many UCSD students and professors are up in arms about the
selection of House speaker Newt Gingrich as their commencement
speaker this year.
They claim that Gingrich represents a "racist, sexist and
anti-gay" agenda. They also believe that Gingrich was first
rejected by UCLA and UC Berkeley before Regent Ward Connerly and UC
President Richard Atkinson forced UCSD Chancellor Robert Dynes to
invite Gingrich.
A petition has been launched by UCSD faculty to persuade the
school not to have Gingrich speak. So far it has been signed by
about 60 UCSD faculty members, in addition to 40 other professors
from universities around the country.
Linda Steiner-Lee, UCLA’s assistant director of University
Communications, said that she has never heard anything about
Gingrich asking to speak here, or anyone asking for Gingrich to
speak here. UCLA, unlike UCSD, does not have a school-wide
commencement ceremony.
Nonetheless, students and faculty continue to protest the
selection of Gingrich as the speaker at UCSD’s second-ever
all-school commencement. Last year’s address was given by President
Clinton.
Clinton focused his remarks on ethnicity and the necessity of
fostering better relations among different races in the United
States. The speech put UCSD in the national spotlight.
Gingrich’s speech is entitled "Goals for a Generation and
Research for the Future." The speech is expected to be about
scientific research.
UCSD faculty members are circulating the petition protesting
both Gingrich’s appearance and the drop in minority admission
numbers, which UCSD associate professor of literature Jorge
Mariscal says is the real issue at stake.
The protest surrounding Gingrich’s speech is more of a response
the low minority admissions numbers, according to Mariscal.
"In many ways, (Gingrich) is a diversion from the drop in
undergraduate admissions for Chicanos and blacks," Mariscal
said.
On May 7, over 100 UCSD students protested Gingrich’s selection
as commencement speaker in front of Dynes’ office, reported the
UCSD Guardian.
In addition to the rumor that Gingrich was rejected by UCLA and
UC Berkeley, some UCSD students and faculty also claim that
Connerly and Atkinson forced Dynes to invite Gingrich.
Dolores Davies, a representative of UCSD’s University
Communications office, said that she has heard inquiries about
Dynes being forced to invite Gingrich, and that she has not found
any evidence that this is the case.
She said that when she first heard the allegation that Dynes was
forced to invite Gingrich, she made phone calls to representatives
from UCLA, UC Berkeley and the UC Office of the President. She
continued that she was not able to find any evidence that this was
true.
UCSD undergraduate student president Joe Leventhal said that
Dynes told him that he made the decision to invite Gingrich,
although the regents are the ones who actually ended up inviting
him.
"The chancellor here did say that the actual invitation was
extended by the regents," Leventhal said.
But Mariscal also said that other evidence points to Connerly
being involved in the selection.
"It’s pretty apparent that Gingrich wants to run for president,
and Gingrich and Connerly wrote an editorial together when
(Proposition) 209 was passed," Mariscal said.
Another student protest at UCSD is planned for this Thursday,
but Davies said that it will be to no avail.
"He was an invited guest, and he’s coming," she said. "There
seems to be an effort to address a lot of other issues including
student diversity issues," she continued.
The Associated Press
Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich