While six students found protesting Karl Rove’s visit to Troy a worthy cause, the Tropolitan did not.
The M. Stanton Evans Symposium on Money, Politics and the Media is an annual event for journalism students, in which the department brings a speaker to present these topics.
Rove is a well-known political figure at this time, but he did not come to Troy to present his or President Bush’s political views—he came to talk about politics as it relates to the media.
Those who protested the war detracted from the actual topics being discussed.
If the protestors deemed it necessary to dispute Rove, they may have tried protesting his stances on politics and the media.
The Hall School of Journalism, which plays host to the symposium, focuses its efforts on getting speakers relevant to journalism students.
Typically journalism students make up the vast majority of the symposium crowd.
Since Rove, like him or not, is an important politician, many non-journalism students showed up this year.
A little gratitude or at least respect for us would have been appreciated.
The Tropolitan is not advocating Rove’s political agendas or the Bush administration in general, as all of its members do not hold the same political views.
But, we understand the symposium is meant to teach us about journalism, and that is what Rove’s speech did.
We are also not saying you shouldn’t express your views, as we are quite fond of the first amendment, but there is a better way to represent your cause.
Only one person of the six protesters asked Rove a question during the session.
If you wanted to get your point across to Rove, maybe you should have gone where he could actually see you and asked him something.