George Mason students petition against Youngkin as commencement speaker

[thumbup]

Only problem is, you want a sleepy Joe AR ban which will apparently magically fix the issue of mental illness.

ReDumBLiCanS: Stop killing unborn babies.

Also, ReDumBLiCanS: Let's not tighten gun laws that'll end up saving children's lives. We're selfish and that'll infringe on my 2nd amendment

...

Please share why Jim Gilmore, Mark Warner, Tim Kaine, and Terry McAuliffe,.all former Virginia governors passed the litmus test to speak at the GMU graduation, but Youngkin deserves a dis-invite.

Sounds like a personal problem to me. If this is the direction you want to go, you're going to need to support changing the name of the of the institution as well. And you may even have to condemn the land the campus is located on also. Oh and also, you're going to need to rename the city of Fairfax.

GMU is a public university. Each governor of Virginia is elected by the public, and each of the governor's respective administrations serve the public. Therefore, since Youngkin secured enough votes to win, he like his predecessors has been invited to give the commencement speech.

Best of luck!

Wow they should have invited Hal Donahue, what have you accomplished in your life? Please bless us with your words of wisdom.

'Cept he got voted In by the residents of Virginia, and mostly won due to Independenrs and Dems getting him over the hump.

They can protest, and they can also not show up. He's the Governor, just like Gilmore, Warner, Kaine, and McAuliffe, who were invited and spoke at the previous commencements. Our Lt. Governor I believe has given commencement speeches.

This is pretty funny coming from an insider who calls Trump the mango Mussolini

You must fight indoctrination with indoctrination, silly. The left owns that. Gotta start somewhere. Nothing the lefts hates more than using their own tactics against them.

@Duke

Have you even read a book?

My guess is Larry will be in the crowd protesting with all the youngins. Hopefully he isn't like his idol Biden or they may need to keep an eye on him.

My kind? Paul's effort at labeling is misguided at best. I'm offering insight into why the populace is unhappy with the choice. They are exercising their rights to protest and not simply accept that which is fed to them by the boomers. I am personally more aligned with the GMU President in this case:

Dear Fellow Patriots,

What does it mean to be a Patriot? Since I arrived at George Mason University in 2020, I have periodically returned to this existential question. This time, we grapple with it relative to spring 2023 commencement.

In May, our featured commencement speaker will be Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin. This announcement has deeply upset members of the Mason community who feel targeted by the Governor’s positions on teaching about race, or addressing the needs of transgender students in public schools. These students want the Governor replaced as a commencement speaker because of these policies. His inclusion in commencement has also been greeted as good news to those who support the Governor. I have heard from both groups.

Is his inclusion in commencement a betrayal of our core identity of diversity, and commitment to inclusivity? Or are his presence and the passionate objections it has inspired actually the purest reflections of who we are as Mason Patriots?

Mason students come by their objections to the Governor authentically, and their rejection of his positions are rooted in very real, deeply personal, often painful life experiences. It is my sincere hope that our students use this opportunity to share their stories, challenges and triumphs, and that the Governor will hear their opinions, respectfully consider and reflect on them, and consider that feedback when making, amending or changing his administration’s policies.

This discourse highlights one of the fundamental purposes of a university. It is a place to engage, debate, and educate on topics where we agree and disagree, sometimes profoundly. If the Governor’s speech were to be cancelled, it is unlikely that such public attention would be paid to the policies students so passionately oppose.

This is vital because our students must prepare to inherit and lead a world with endless conflicts and divisions. Would we really be preparing them for that world if we removed the opportunities for them to safely engage in debate and discourse?

Or is it better to expose them to people and ideas that may offend or challenge them, but in an environment of steadfast support and safety, so they may develop the agency to effectively express and advocate for themselves once they leave the university environment?

I believe it is the latter. If we teach that the only way to deal with opposition is to suppress it, we rob students of the very tools they will need to build an effective society.

As president of the largest and most diverse public university in our state, I support those students who are making their voices heard, and I applaud their courage and commitment to advocate for themselves and their communities. That being said, I don’t believe that we should silence the voices of those with whom we disagree, especially in this forum where there is no imminent threat present as a result of the disagreements. As a student leader at North Carolina State University, I did more than my share of speaking up and speaking out, and so I can identify with Mason students’ passion and conviction. That experience also taught me that once you start silencing people you disagree with, you open a door that ultimately targets historically marginalized communities more than it benefits them.

Over the past two years, the Mason community has undergone significant introspection through various strategic planning and branding exercises, and challenged ourselves to answer fundamental questions of who we are, who we wish to be, and why anyone should care. In other words, what does it mean to be a Patriot?

More than any four-year institution in our state, we are both progressive and conservative. We are both wealthy and impoverished. Privileged and historically marginalized. Young and old. Local and international. First-generation college students and second-generation Mason students. Working parents and working soldiers. Black, brown, white and every pigmentation of humanity. Gay, straight, cisgender, transgender, he/him, she/her, and they/them. We embody America’s highest aspirations and its flawed lived experiences. We are its galvanized unity and its infuriating divisions. We are complicated and messy, earnest and scrappy. It is complex to navigate all of these things, which is one of the most difficult and rewarding aspects of my job.

With our differences come many world views, beliefs, experiences and expressions, and the only way we thrive is by providing a safe and open public square that allows these differences to comingle. This environment can be uncomfortable to navigate because it requires sometimes hearing and seeing things you don’t like. But it also means everyone – including you – has a platform to advocate for your beliefs.

Mason has a long tradition of supporting free speech. That support extends to each person who gives a commencement speech. And no speaker can take away from our diversity. At Mason, diversity is about more than just looking different, it’s about believing differently, thinking differently, expressing differently, and having the environment in which to do so. At Mason, that environment extends to every student, staff and faculty member. It also extends to Governors.

As Patriots, we are many things, but we are ALL of these things TOGETHER. And that’s what makes us beautifully DIFFERENT. And that’s what it means to be a Patriot.

I look forward to meeting and continuing discussions on this issue.

Sincerely,

Gregory Washington

President

Yes!

Let's force the voting age students to sit through a commencement speech and take that vitriol and apply it to the elections. Let's have that message amplified via social media that Youngkin is a backwards-thinking billionaire who has their own interests for the presidency at heart and uses Virginia as political doormat before moving on.

Paul, think big picture and pyrrhic victories. It would be better for Youngkin to back out. He could say that he "stood up to the woke mob". The students could see that their message would be heard and the college listened to them. Everybody wins.

Or

You will have a nice photo OP of students walking out as he talks. That would make national news and hurt his chances amongst Gen Z and Millenial voters.

So says the guy thinking that making fun of people in mobile homes somehow makes him look sophisticated. Democrats are the party of big business, crony capitalism and Chinese payments to the Biden crime family.

The Carlyle Group

In August 1995,[20] Youngkin joined the private-equity firm The Carlyle Group, based in Washington, D.C.,[19] initially as a member of the US buyout team.[16] In 1999, he was named a partner and managing director of Carlyle.[21][22] He managed the firm's United Kingdom buyout team (2000–2005)[16][23] and global industrial sector investment team (2005–2008), dividing his time between London and Washington.[21][24]

In April 2008, Carlyle's founders asked Youngkin to step back from deal-making to focus on the firm's broader strategy.[3][25] In 2009, the founders created a seven-person operating committee, chaired by Youngkin, which oversaw the non-deal, day-to-day operations of Carlyle.[25][26] In 2009 Youngkin also joined, along with Daniel Akerson, the firm's executive committee, which had previously consisted solely of the three founders.[26][27]

When Carlyle's chief financial officer Peter Nachtwey left suddenly in late 2010, Youngkin became interim CFO[28] until Adena Friedman was hired as CFO late March 2011.[29] In 2010, Youngkin joined the firm's management committee.[30][25] Youngkin was chief operating officer of the Carlyle Group from March 2011 until June 2014.[31]

Youngkin played a major role in taking Carlyle public, supervising the initial public offering.[25][32][33][28][34][35]

In June 2014, he became co-president and co-chief operating officer with Michael J. Cavanagh, who joined the Carlyle Group from JPMorgan Chase.[36][37] Together they helped develop and implement the firm's growth initiatives and managed the firm's operations on a day-to-day basis.[38] Cavanagh left the firm in May 2015 to become CFO of Comcast, leaving Youngkin as president and COO of Carlyle.[39]

Co-CEO

In October 2017, the Carlyle Group announced that its founders would remain executive chairmen on the board of directors but step down as the day-to-day leaders of the firm; they named Youngkin and Kewsong Lee to succeed them, as co-CEOs, effective January 1, 2018.[3] As co-CEOs, Youngkin oversaw Carlyle's real estate, energy, infrastructure businesses, and investment solutions businesses; Lee oversaw the firm's corporate private equity and global credit businesses.[40][41] Youngkin and Lee also joined the firm's board of directors when they became co-CEOs.[35]

During Youngkin and Lee's tenure as co-CEOs, they oversaw the firm's transition from a publicly traded partnership into a corporation.[42][43][44]

Bloomberg News described the co-CEO relationship as "awkward ... and increasingly acrimonious".[34] The publication later wrote that Lee "quickly established dominance, diminishing Youngkin’s clout."[45] This was largely due to Lee being given control of the corporate private equity and global credit units at the onset, which were bigger and more profitable than the others.[46][47] In July 2020, Youngkin announced that he would retire from the Carlyle Group at the end of September 2020, after serving as co-CEO for about 30 months, stating his intention to focus on community and public service efforts.[34][48][42] In 2020, Youngkin and his wife founded a nonprofit, Virginia Ready Initiative, focusing on connecting unemployed people in the state with job-training programs and potential employers.[49][50][51][52]