Gonzales speech canceled ’students would not attend.’

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http://thinkprogress.org/2007/12/02/gonzales-speech-canceled-students-would-not-attend/

Students at Pomona College were considering bringing former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to speak on campus, but have now rejected that idea. “It was a combination of not having the funding and the impression that students would not attend this event,” said Kelly Schwartz, the chairperson of the Speakers Committee of the Associated Students of Pomona College. According to Pomona’s Student Life newspaper, Gonzales “asked the school to pay him $35,000 in addition to first-class accommodations.

Gonzales Will Not Speak, Says Committee
http://www.tsl.pomona.edu/?page=news&article=2851&issue=106

Student leaders at Pomona College are no longer considering a speaking invitation to former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who until September served as the country’s Attorney General according to the leader of the committee that was initially considering booking him.

Kelly Schwartz ’10, the ASPC Communications Commissioner and chairperson of the Speakers Committee, said that the committee ultimately made its decision based on a consideration of price and student interest level.

“In the case of Gonzales, it was a combination of not having the funding and the impression that students would not attend this event,” she said, although the committee stopped short of an initial plan to have the ASPC Senate poll students on their interest on the subject. Gonzales’s speaking agency had asked the school to pay him $35,000 in addition to first-class accommodations.