Just as the supercharged political season is reaching a climax, the college of St. Catherine in St. Paul has decided to avoid all things political.
Administrators said Tuesday that they called off speeches by former presidential candidate and New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, conservative political commentator Bay Buchanan and Minnesota's Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Al Franken, arguing that their decision to do so is all about fairness.
Clinton and Buchanan had been invited to talk on campus this week, Franken earlier this month.
Colleen Hegranes, the college's senior vice president, said it's all about making sure a balance of views is presented to students so close to Election Day. She said all three would be welcome to speak on campus -- after Nov. 4.
"In a perfect world, at the outset, we could say we could have three Republicans, three Democrats and three Independents," Hegranes said. "We could say we are perfectly balanced. We would like to do that. But in this semester we didn't have that advance opportunity to do that."
It's not the first time a Twin Cities college has prevented a controversial figure from speaking on campus. The University of St. Thomas recently rejected a request by abortion opponent Star Parker to speak on campus. A year ago, St. Thomas canceled plans to have Archbishop Desmond Tutu to speak because of statements he made about Israel. It later rescinded its decision and Parker spoke on campus; Tutu spoke elsewhere.
On Tuesday evening, many students reacted were indignant.
"It's almost insulting to say you're not going to bring these people in, to say we're not intelligent enough to have our own opinions or form our own opinions," said senior Kate Pottebaum. "I would think that I would be bettering myself because I'm always trying to understand the beliefs of people I don't agree with."
