On the heels of over 6,000 people protesting at the Capitol building in Lansing this week, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder is getting more flak, this time from students at the University of Michigan.
Snyder has been chosen as the commencement speaker for the Spring Commencement ceremony and a whole lotta U of M students are having none of it. At the same time thousands of people were gathered in Lansing, protesting the “Nerd Governor” and his draconian budget cuts & new Emergency Financial Manager “Super Duper Czar” law, U of M students were staging a protest of their own in Ann Arbor. Hundreds more showed their support on the movement’s Facebook page.
Nearly 100 University of Michigan students — many of them seniors — rallied Wednesday to protest a plan to have Gov. Rick Snyder as a commencement speaker at spring graduation ceremonies next month.Students on the campus Diag carried signs that said, “Graduation Cancelled Due to Budget Cuts,” “Not in Our House” and “Not At Our Commencement” and chanted, “Hey! Hey! Ho! Ho! Rick Snyder has got to go!”
Zach Goldsmith, 22, a political science senior from Ypsilanti, started a Facebook page to protest Snyder as a commencement speaker.
“I woke up on Monday to learn from a Michigan Daily article that of all people, Rick Snyder would be speaking at my graduation,” he said. “At first I was shocked; then I was angry.”
Goldsmith said Snyder is a poor choice because of his plans to cut funding for public education and tax contributions to state colleges and universities.
Signatures obtained from a student-initiated online petition will be presented to the U of M Board of Regents at their meeting in Detroit today.
According to Ann Arbor.com, inviting new Governors to speak at the commencement following their election is a U of M tradition going back decades.
I know the leaders of the College Dems in Ann Arbor personally and they are amazingly politically savvy, well-organized and passionate. I suspect we will hear much more from them before this is over.
I’m just sayin’…
