(Miers) Helped Set Up Lecture Series That Brought Leading Feminists to SMU

[jefferson_dem]

:popcorn: :popcorn: < this will be a two bagger, at least!

Supreme Court Nominee Helped Set Up Lecture Series That Brought Leading Feminists to Southern Methodist U.

For someone both heralded and feared as a potentially conservative voice on the U.S. Supreme Court, Harriet E. Miers has played a key role in exposing college students to some unmistakably liberal ideas.

In the late 1990s, as a member of the advisory board for Southern Methodist University's law school, Ms. Miers pushed for the creation of an endowed lecture series in women's studies named for Louise B. Raggio, one of the first women to rise to prominence in the Texas legal community. A strong advocate for women, Ms. Raggio helped persuade state lawmakers to revise Texas laws to give women new rights over property and in the event of divorce.

Ms. Miers, whom President Bush announced on Monday as his choice to fill the Supreme Court seat being vacated by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, not only advocated for the lecture series, but also gave money and solicited donations to help get it off the ground.

A feminist icon, Gloria Steinem, delivered the series's first lecture, in 1998. In the following two years, the speakers were Patricia S. Schroeder, the former Democratic congresswoman widely associated with women's causes, and Susan Faludi, the author of Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women (1991). Ann W. Richards, the Democrat whom George W. Bush unseated as governor of Texas in 1994, delivered the lecture in 2003.

<SNIP>

http://chronicle.com/temp/email.php?id=e6yeo9i8hnrs60hye6marcd5rt52f6f5

[QuettaKid]

1. Hey Freeps!!!

[MADem]

2. Well, isn't that SPECIAL???

Could it be that she was touched by....SATAN?????

That will put the fundie undies in a massive knot!!!!!

[katinmn]

3. The conservatives will have massive strokes reading this

:evilgrin:

[Demeter]

4. And What Has She Done For Us Lately?

Been enabler to the biggest fascist since Hitler.

[daleo]

5. Who else spoke?

I think they may be cherry picking a few liberals, to make Miers look more acceptable.

Here are a few others. Most seem pretty comfortably corporate.

"Other speakers in the series have included Geraldine Laybourne, founder of Oxygen Media, a cable-television network for women; Gwen Ifill, moderator of public television's Washington Week and a correspondent for The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer; and Colleen Barrett and Herb Kelleher, both top executives at Dallas-based Southwest Airlines, who teamed up to give the lecture in 2004."

[DBoon]

6. Yup. She's a corporatist

She brings in liberals if it will add marketing pazzaz to the series and beff up attendance.

Liberals are "controversial entertainment" that's good for box office receipts

[Connie_Corleone]

7. I'm eating too much popcorn this month.

:popcorn:

[central scrutinizer]

8. smokescreen

like the conservative "outcry" over Miers, this is part of the stealth campaign to make it appear that she is a "moderate". Just like constantly screaming about the liberal media gives the media the chance to say: "see, we are getting complaints from the right and the left, so that proves we are unbiased."

[Skink]

9. Quick somebody photoshop a pic of Miers with Stienem...

:wow:

[katinmn]

10. LOL!

:rofl:

[brentspeak]

11. The bottom line is that she is simply not qualified

She has no judicial experience. Not even a reputation as a legal scholar. Nothing. If she is confirmed, her clerks would probably have a better knowledge of the law than she would.

And let's not forget that she's a complete Bush crony...

[Inland]

12. I love how they think having Ann Richards speak is a sign of moderation

I mean, even Texas is far enough advanced to elect the woman as governor, but for Miers to actually invite her to speak....how, how, how ADVANCED and TOLERANT!

Fact is, Miers is the conservative wing of a conservative party in a conservative state.

Forget her.

[tanyev]

13. Latest email from Family Research Council. They're not happy.

The Chronicle of Higher Education yesterday published a story on Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers. It spoke of her "playing a key role" in the late 1990s in establishing the Louise B. Raggio lectureship at Southern Methodist University, Miss Miers' alma mater. The article says Miss Miers "pushed for the creation" of the Raggio speakers' series. The Raggio lectureship brought an apparently unbroken string of pro-abortion speakers to the university's Dallas campus.

Among those tapped to enlighten young law students were Gloria Steinem, founder of Ms. Magazine and a veteran campaigner for liberal abortion laws. Also holding forth were Congresswoman Patricia Schoeder, Susan Faludi, author of Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women, and even former Texas Governor Ann W. Richards, the pro-abortion Democrat whom George W. Bush defeated in 1994.

This story needs to be handled with care. The Chronicle is certainly no friend of the pro-life cause and may have exaggerated Miss Miers' role in setting up the lectureship. But the issue does need to be carefully explored. It raises a host of questions about judgment. For example, how "key" was Miss Miers' role and how hard did she "push" to create this lectureship? Was this speakers' series named for Louise B. Raggio from its inception? Ms. Raggio is a high-profile Dallas lawyer who has received well-publicized awards from the ACLU and Planned Parenthood. Did Miss Miers know what kind of program she was helping to establish? Should she have known? The law students surely would have benefited from hearing contrasting points of view.

All of these are reasonable questions. We need to see the documentation on the Raggio Lecture Series, how it was set up, who played what role, and how it was perceived at the time. There can be no question of attorney-client privilege here, nor of Executive Privilege. The atmosphere on all too many campuses is, tragically, pro-abortion. But the climate of opinion around the U.S. Supreme Court is more intensely so. The reporters, commentators, lawyers, and far too many clerks constitute a powerful pro-abortion monopoly of opinion. A man or woman must have strong principles and unshakable determination to resist those pressures. President Bush has assured us that Harriet Miers does have that inner toughness. We certainly hope she does.
http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=WU05J05


*chortle*

[CountAllVotes]

14. Miers = a two-faced Janus

We need here (well "they" need her). She'll fit right in. Says one thing one day, the opposite the next.

Another pig ... just a female. :grr:

:kick: