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Lawrence O'Donnell: Where do you think black people would be sitting on the bus today if Rosa Parks had followed your father's advice?
Herman Cain: My father was not giving Rosa Parks advice. Here again, Lawrence, you are distorting the intent of what I said. I was a high school student. The college students were doing the sit-ins. The college students were doing the Freedom Rides. If I had been a college student, I probably would have been participating.

 

Herman Cain

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Lawrence O'Donnell: Mr. Cain, in fact, you were in college from 1963 to 1967, at the height of the civil rights movement, exactly when the most important demonstrations and protests were going on. You could easily, as a student at Morehouse, between 1963 and 1967, actively participated in the kinds of protests that got African Americans the rights they enjoy today. You watched from that perspective at Morehouse when you were not participating in those processes. You watch black college students from around the country and white college students from around the country come to the South and be murdered fighting for the right of African Americans. Do you regret sitting on those sidelines at that time?
Herman Cain: Lawrence, your attempt to say that I sat on the sidelines is an irrelevant comparison that you are trying to deduce from that—
Lawrence O'Donnell: It's in your book. It's in your book.
Herman Cain: Now, Lawrence, I know what's in my book. Now, let me ask you a question. Did you expect every black student and every black college in America to be out there, in the middle of every fight? The answer is no. So for you to say, why was I sitting on the sidelines, I think that that is an inaccurate deduction that you are trying to make. You didn't know, Lawrence, what I was doing with the rest of my life. You didn't know what my family situation may have been. Maybe, just maybe, I had a sick relative, which is why I might not have been sitting in, or doing the Freedom Rides. So what I'm saying, Lawrence, is, with all due respect my friend, your deduction is incorrect, and it's not logical, okay?

 

Herman Cain

 

Interest in and patience with long, complex books and poems have alarmingly diminished not only among college students but college faculty in the US. It is difficult to imagine American students today, even at elite universities, gathering impromptu at midnight for a passionate discussion of big, challenging literary works like Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov -- a scene I witnessed in a recreation room strewn with rock albums at my college dormitory in upstate New York in 1965.

 

Camille Paglia

 

Rosa Parks' bold and principled refusal to give up her seat was not an intentional attempt to change a nation, but a singular act aimed at restoring the dignity of the individual. Yet Mrs. Parks' life defined a generation and redefined a nation. Her individual act sparked a revolution that marched America closer to becoming the society grounded in freedom and individual liberty envisioned by our nation's founders. I'm humbled to represent my colleagues in this ceremony honoring Rosa Parks. While our nation must say goodbye to this inspiring leader, her life and legacy will live on in all who continue to share her passion for freedom and justice.

 

Bill Frist

 

Educators everywhere must seek new ways to promote the idea that learning is something a student does with books and materials, and a teacher who cares; that learning can happen in college and outside; and that a student's intellectual growth depends far less on geography (which college) than on what advantage he takes of the opportunities which surround him wherever he is.

 

Eugene S. Wilson

 

The New York Times is cheering the decision of Mount Holyoke College to stop requiring that students submit their SAT scores for admission, ending what the Times calls "the tyranny of the big test." While conceding that the SAT measures "mental dexterity," the editorial complains that the test does not capture qualities such as "motivation" or what the student "learned in high school."
The SAT also doesn't measure compassion, speed or good looks. It does, however, measure something more than the ability to suck up to your high school teachers and guidance counselors.

 

Ann Coulter