ASU Backtracks on Honorary Obama Degree

University still deciding on commencement gesture, president says
By Will McCahill,  Newser Staff
Posted Apr 10, 2009 5:17 PM CDT
ASU Backtracks on Honorary Obama Degree
President Barack Obama speaks today at the White House.   (AP Photo)

Deluged by a tidal wave of mockery, Arizona State University today set the stage for a flip-flop on its decision not to give President Obama an honorary degree when he speaks at commencement May 13, its president tells Politico. The Tempe school will “honor him in every way possible,” Michael Crow said this afternoon. “We still have a month to work all that out.”

“There was no intended slight,” Crow said. “We had not yet talked about what honors we might give him as our commencement speaker, and … we don’t want anyone to think we do not recognize what he has achieved and what he means in America.” The firestorm, he added, “kind of wounded my heart.”
(More Barack Obama stories.)

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