this is such a dumb question, but what's going on with smith and the speaker issue? I've seen a ton of posts about it but I'm still a little lost. :/ sorry if I'm bugging you
Well, the speaker is the head of IMF, which is a terrible organization that takes advantage of poor and destitute countries. Many students were uncomfortable with a commencement speaker that works for an organization that enforces Western imperialism. Students held a protest that marched to the president’s house during a board of trustees dinner party, after the college made half ass attempts to appease the students by hosting a panel. (If the panel was anything like the panel on divestment, it was condescending and piss poor.)Just recently, the speaker withdrew from speaking at commencement due to the student protest. The email from the college president was incredibly passive aggressive. “Those who objected will be satisfied that their activism has had a desired effect. But at what cost to Smith College? This is a question I hope we will ponder as a community in the months ahead.”There are Smithies who are siding with the President and there have been discussions about how “annoying” the student protest was, and that there has been no real change through the protest. (Stop trying to change things! Just shut up and take it!) Some people think that the speaker should still be speaking, because powerful women = feminism!!!!! Yay for capitalistic liberal feminism!
Personally, I’m really glad that the protest was successful and that once again Smithies have demonstrated that activism is a powerful tool.
This is also all from my understanding of events. I may have missed some fine details, but yeah.