Look who’s coming
to commencement

Former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, former Secretary of Labor Alexis Herman, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, former Ambassador to the United Nations Richard Holbrooke, former Attorney General Janet Reno, Sen. Hillary Clinton, National Organization for Women President Patricia Ireland, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People President Kweisi Mfume. …

That’s a sampling of the speakers scheduled to make commencement addresses at America’s elite colleges and universities.

And an organization that surveyed the institutions’ selections says there’s a little imbalance in the choices.

“For the eighth year in a row our most prestigious schools excluded scholars like Milton Friedman, Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas for the likes of left-wing activists Morris Dees, Marian Wright Edelman, Janet Reno and Hillary Clinton,” said Ron Robinson, president of the Young America’s Foundation. “College administrators are using commencement ceremonies to send their students off with one more predictable leftist lecture.”

According to the group, Clinton administration officials, media personalities, Hollywood celebrities and left-wing activists make up the majority of graduation speakers at the top 50 schools.

Rubin is speaking at Harvard, Herman at Spelman College, Albright at the College of William and Mary, Holbrooke at Drew University, Reno at Cornell, Mfume at Hampton University, Ireland at Sweet Briar College and Sen. Clinton at Yale.

Southern Poverty Law Center founder Morris Dees is set to address DePaul University and Rice University, anti-tobacco activist David Kessler will speak at Fairleigh Dickinson, Toni Morrison at Smith College, Jonathan Kozol at Case Western Reserve University, feminist activist Wilma Mankiller will join Albright at William and Mary and Ted Turner will address Mississippi University for Women.

Media and Hollywood personalities are also frequent choices. Among them: Actor Scott Baio at New York University, CNN’s Jeff Greenfield at Bucknell, PBS’ Jim Lehrer at Tufts and Bill Cosby at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and at the University of Cincinnati.

And what about diversity? There was a little, according to the organization. President George W. Bush will address Notre Dame, and Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson is set to appear at Boston College.