'Silent Protest' May Greet McCain Speech at Columbia

Splashes of orange will dot a sea of blue graduation gowns at Senator McCain's speech this morning at Columbia University's Class Day. Some graduating seniors are planning a "silent protest."

"Our goal is to show our opposition to McCain's policies and voting record in a peaceful silent demonstration during his speech," one of the graduates planning to protest, Ari Rosmarin, said. "We have big orange buttons that say 'John McCain does not speak for me.' We want to be as visually powerful as we can."

Mr. Rosmarin said that although some students feel a protest is inappropriate on Class Day, Mr. McCain is a likely presidential candidate and thus fair game. "If he has a right to come and be political, we have a right to respond in a political manner," he said.

Mr. Rosmarin said some family members of graduating seniors also might participate by holding up protest banners. "We hope that what we've been taught in our four years at Columbia is to think critically about the world around us, and engage with it directly." He said he disagrees with Mr. McCain's support for the war in Iraq and for a ban on gay marriage.

Other Columbia seniors beg to differ.

"They're calling it the Orange Revolution," the president of the school's College Republicans, Chris Kulawik, said. "It's pretty disrespectful. He's going to talk about life experiences. They see him as someone who has different ideas and because he's different, they're going to protest him. It's not fair."

"If I were going to predict, the silent protesters are going to be drowned out by the number of people cheering for John McCain," another member of the College Republicans, Peter Law, said.

"No one presumes he speaks for every student or faculty member, but it is in the nature of any great university to provide a forum for free speech by those with diverse opinions, whether they be U.S. senators or graduating seniors," a spokeswoman for Columbia, Mariellen Gallagher, said.

Mr. McCain's daughter, Megan, is a junior at Columbia.

Mr. McCain will also address the graduating class of the New School on Friday. A part-time New School faculty member in education studies, Greg Tewksbury, said he helped gather 1,200 signatures of new school graduating seniors, faculty, and staff from all divisions asking that the invitation to Mr. McCain be withdrawn.