Objections to Bush Library

[Doug]

DOUG
Check out the Conan O'Brien joke in the story!

See here.

As planners moved closer on deciding where in Texas to site President George W. Bush's library, members of the community at one candidate university expressed objections about the establishment of the facility at their school.

Southern Methodist University is one of the three schools that may play host to the presidential library of George W. Bush, along with the University of Dallas and Baylor University.

The blog of Paul Burka, the senior executive editor of the magazine Texas Monthly, includes excerpts of a letter written to SMU's president by faculty, administrators, and staff of the university's Perkins School of Theology, worrying about siting the library at the university. In it, they say they would:

...regret to see SMU enshrine attitudes and actions widely deemed as ethically egregious: degradation of habeas corpus, outright denial of global warming, flagrant disregard for international treaties, alienation of long-term U.S. allies, environmental predation, shameful disrespect for gay persons and their rights, a pre-emptive war based on false and misleading premises, and a host of other erosions of respect for the global human community and for this good Earth on which our flourishing depends.

An article following up on the story, written by Scott Jaschik and published in the journal Inside Higher Ed, notes that SMU is considered the frontrunner among the three schools hoping to host the library. It also reports that the organizers of the letter and the critics of the library have been trying to make the debate on the library focus on academic standards instead of Bush bashing.

...Jaschik's article further explains that if the Bush library is sited at SMU, two graduates of the school have stated their plans to lobby to have "Methodist" removed from the university's name.

...Some faculty members are not happy generally to be associated with the library of a president who — his librarian wife notwithstanding — isn’t seen as a big fan of intellectual life. When the reported price tag of $500 million for the library was publicized last month, professors didn’t like their institution being linked to the jokes being told. (Conan O’Brien: “President Bush is putting together his presidential library and apparently the library is going to cost $500 million, which will work out to $100 million a book.")

Johnson said that there are also real problems with the message the library could send. SMU historically has had a reputation for attracting wealthy students — a reputation that the university has tried to fight in recent years by offering generous scholarship to low-income students. “I think it might be a setback in terms of trying to attract a different constituency among students,” Johnson said. “Children of wealthy, leading Republicans in this state come to SMU, and then they are groomed here to become Republican leaders in all sectors of society. We shouldn’t be in the business of just replicating Republicans.”...

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

I hope NO school in TX puts up that library. Heaven (or whatever) knows W has in no way, shape, or form lived up to the Methodist credo (which is quite egalitarian and environmental as their duty to god). Let Yale do it. They were perfectly happy to take alumni Daddy Bush's money to let W in and give him a degree. On the other hand, the UT Law School refused W admittance way back when. Makes me proud of my alma mater.