"What's a Lieberry?" Bush Wonders as Controversy Brews

Paul Burka, Senior Executive Editor of Texas Monthly, reports on his latest blog that plans for a George W. Bush Presidential Library on the SMU campus are meeting some serious resistance. Burka writes, “A letter, dated December 16, from ‘Faculty, Administrators, & Staff’ of the Perkins School of Theology to R. Gerald Turner, president of the Board of Trustees, is now circulating not only on the SMU campus but also among a wider academic community, urging the board to ‘reconsider and to rescind SMU's pursuit of the presidential library.’" Burka goes on to publish excerpts of said letter, which we have reposted below. Read Burka’s reaction to the controversy here.

[Excerpts from the letter taken from Burka’s Blog]

"We count ourselves among those who would regret to see SMU enshrine attitudes and actions widely deemed as ethically egregious: degradation of habeas corpus, outright denial of global warming, flagrant disregard for international treaties, alienation of long-term U.S. allies, environmental predation, shameful disrespect for gay persons and their rights, a pre-emptive war based on false and misleading premises, and a host of other erosions of respect for the global human community and for this good Earth on which our flourishing depends."

"[T]hese violations are antithetical to the teaching, scholarship, and ethical thinking that best represents Southern Methodist University."

"Another matter that warrants our attention is that whether it aims to or not SMU will, in the long run, financially profit on the backs of hard-working Americans who feel squashed by policies they've now rejected at the polls. Surely it's not the case that SMU will allow itself to benefit financially from a name and legacy that globally is associated with suffering, death, and political 'bad faith.' Taken together, all these issues set decision-making about the Library in a framework of inescapable ethical questions, and remind us of a key imperative adopted by many leading universities around the globe: 'to be critic and conscience of society."