President Barack Obama delivered the graduation address at Rutgers University Sunday,culminating a two-year-effort by officials and students to beget a sitting president deliver the address for the first time.
The president struck a partisan tone in his speech. While not invoking the apparent Republican presidential nominee by name, he attacked the tenor of Donald Trump's rhetoric."course of 2016, or let me be as clear as I can be," the president told the enthusiastic crowd. "In politics and in life, ignorance is not a advantage."The president also criticized Trump's idea for a wall between the U.
S. and Mexico.
But he also urged the graduating students to seek dialogue with people who hold opposing views. He specifically chided those who protested the university's invitation to former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in 2014 to give a graduation address. And he urged them to seek dialogue with people who hold opposing views."Hold their feet to the fire, and build them defend their positions,if somebody's got a bad or offensive idea prove it wrong, engage it, or debate it,stand up for what you believe in," Obama said. "Don't be scared to rob somebody on."Secretary Rice backed out of delivering the address in 2014 after students protested her involvement in former President George Bush's policies in Iraq.
With reporting from the Associated Press.
Source: wnyc.org