Not Everyone Is Hailing the Chief at This Commencement

P resident Bush was probably expecting a warm welcome at Furman University, a small Baptist-rooted school in Greenville, S.C., where he is delivering the commencement address on Saturday.

It hasn't quite turned out that way.

More than 200 faculty members and students signed a letter this month criticizing the Bush administration's policies on the Iraq war, secret interrogations, the environment and other issues. The letter says that although it would ordinarily be "an honor" to host a president, "these are not ordinary circumstances."

"We are ashamed of these actions of this administration," the letter reads, after listing objections to Bush. "Because we love this country and the ideals it stands for, we accept our civic responsibility to speak out against these actions that violate American values."

Coupled with talk that some faculty members might skip the commencement, the letter set off a firestorm on the generally conservative campus of about 2,600 students. A group of Bush supporters, "Conservative Students for a Better Tomorrow," responded last week with a letter bearing more than 500 signatures.

"Some professors seem intent on turning what should be a celebration of their students' accomplishments into a forum to air their political differences with President Bush," the second letter read.

Finally, university administrators weighed in with a statement, saying that faculty members must get permission to skip the ceremony but that an unidentified number had already been excused, based on "conscientious objection to the President's visit." The school also posted the letters from both sides on its Web site, http://www.furman.edu.

School officials noted that politicians and pundits from both parties had visited the campus recently, including the two Democratic presidential candidates, Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) and Barack Obama (Ill.), and former Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee. "The intense discussion about the participation of the President of the United States in Furman's Commencement reaffirms the University's foundational commitment to being a crossroads of competing ideas and perspectives," the school's statement read.

The visit to Furman is one of three commencement addresses Bush is giving in his final year in office. He appeared May 4 in Greensburg, Kan., where the high school was torn apart last year by a tornado, and is to speak on Wednesday at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.

Vice President Cheney delivered the commencement address at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in New London, Conn., telling new officers last Wednesday that the war on terror will be lengthy but "does not have to go on forever."

Asked about White House reaction to the hubbub at Furman, spokeswoman Emily Lawrimore said that "the cornerstone of our democracy is the right of people to peaceably express their views."

"The president looks forward to congratulating the graduates as they finish one chapter in their lives," she said.