Olivia Nuzzi of The Daily Beast has some choice words for the class of 2014.

All I can add is… what she said.

The Oh-So-Fragile Class of 2014 Needs to STFU And Listen to Some New Ideas

As temperatures finally rise and trees bloom, the class of 2014 is preparing to don their caps and gowns, bid farewell to the cozy confines of campus life, and attempt to enter into an unwelcoming workforce; maybe they’re even carrying around a mountain of student loan debt. It is understandable, then, that the class of 2014 is a little bit on edge. But someone needs to tell them to calm the hell down.

Today marks the second time in a month that a powerful female figure has pulled out of delivering a commencement speech because of opposition from a seriously uptight and holier-than-thou student body.

Christine Lagarde, head of the International Monetary Fund, has decided not to serve as commencement speaker for Smith College’s May 18, 2014 graduation, after students started a petition protesting her selection.

The petition—which boasts 483 signatures (less than half of their goal of 1,000)—states that although they “do not wish to disregard all of Ms. Lagarde’s accomplishments” and they “recognize that she is just a good person working in a corrupt system” they do not want to “encourage the values and ideals that the IMF fosters.” As if Smith College has such influence that allowing Lagarde to address its graduating class will have some kind of measurable effect on how people think about the IMF.

On the petition page, a student is quoted as saying she is “utterly disgusted that Smith has chosen to host someone from the IMF, an organization that has proven itself to be nothing but imperialistic, ineffective, and oppressive.”

Because God forbid these delicate students should be exposed to an idea or an organization with which they disagree—at college.


 
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