Luckily for Chris Matthews, since he’s a liberal, students won’t show up to protest his appearance, rudely interrupt his speech or get up and walk out. That only happens to conservative speakers.

Collin Binkley of The Columbus Dispatch reports.

Ohio State students upset Chris Matthews tapped as commencement speaker

Some Ohio State University students are upset that they had no say in picking this year’s spring commencement speaker, a break with past practice.

Provost Joseph Steinmetz and his Office of Academic Affairs alone decided to invite MSNBC talk-show host Chris Matthews to speak at the May 4 ceremony at Ohio Stadium. In the past, the university asked a committee of students and staff for a recommendation. This year, there wasn’t time, OSU officials said.

“Because of time constraints and leadership changes during the past year, the decision was made to use a more streamlined approach to speaker selection for spring 2014 commencement,” OSU spokesman Gary Lewis said in an email.

Amid the search for a new president and other shuffles in top jobs, Steinmetz and his office made the final decision, Lewis said.

News that Matthews will speak hasn’t been well-received among students, said Taylor Stepp, president of the undergraduate student government. Complaints about Matthews’s liberal views are common, Stepp said, but students are equally upset that the university didn’t draw a bigger name.

“The response from students is simply that we don’t know who this guy is, we don’t care about this guy,” Stepp said. “And the fact that Mr. Matthews obviously has a very liberal leaning and he’s not even a public official was irksome to me.”