# Posted 4:03 PM by Ariel David Adesnik  

FISKING THE NEW KID: I have to admit I feel bad about what I’m going to do. A hard-working idealist wins a Rhodes Scholarship. His name is Chesa Boudin. Instead of welcoming him to Oxford, the previous years’ scholars subject him to a humiliating fisking. Could it be jealousy? Do Josh and David wish that the NY Times had chosen to profile them instead?

Chesa, if you are reading this, I want you to know that I have nothing against you. We went to the same college. We ate in the same dining hall. This fisking isn’t about you. It’s about the NY Times. It needs to be taught a lesson.

From Radical Background, a Rhodes Scholar Emerges
By Jodi Wilgoren

CHICAGO, Dec. 8 — As with the other triumphs of his young life, Chesa Boudin was unable to celebrate with his parents on Saturday afternoon when he was named a Rhodes scholar. He could not even share the good news.

As maximum-security inmates in the New York State prison system, Katherine Boudin and David Gilbert are barred from receiving telephone calls or e-mail messages. Though Mr. Boudin has rigged his dorm room at Yale University to override the block on collect calls, neither parent was able to connect with him today. They will read of their son's accomplishment in the newspaper, instead, and it may be days before they can congratulate him.

Mr. Boudin, 22, is used to it. His parents, members of the 1970's radical group the Weathermen, have been in prison since he was 14 months old, for roles in a 1981 Brink's robbery in Rockland County in which two police officers and a guard were killed. They missed his Phi Beta Kappa award, high school graduation, Little League games.

"Roles?" This description of Boudin and Gilbert's crimes is pretty much a whitewash. (Thanks to YalePundits for the link.)

"When I was younger, I was angry," Mr. Boudin, a tall, clean-cut young man said in an interview here Saturday evening, looking comfortable in the navy pinstriped suit he had worn for the Rhodes interview, though the tie was long gone.

"Now I'm not angry," he said, "I'm sad that my parents have to suffer what they have to suffer on a daily basis, that millions of other people have to suffer as well."

Yes, that’s very sad. But isn’t the death of three innocent men – because of your parents criminal brutality – a lot more sad? Yes, every child deserves parents. But what about the children of the police offers and bank guard your parents murdered? And what exactly do your parents have in common with the “millions of other people” who suffer every day? Are you implying that your parents are innocent victims of a repressive government?

Chesa, I believe that your words were taken out of context. I cannot believe that you are as heartless and self-centered as this quotation suggests you are. Perhaps your wiser words were cut by an editor interested in saving space. Perhaps the Times reporter took for granted that you sympathize with the victims of your parents’ crimes. But as things stand, there is no way of knowing that.

Raised by two other Weathermen leaders, Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, in Chicago's Hyde Park, he is one of 32 American winners of this year's Rhodes scholarships. It is a remarkable achievement for a boy with epilepsy and dyslexia who did not learn to read until third grade and spent much of his childhood in temper tantrums. His selection also reflects the changes in the nation's premier academic award in its 100th year: once an exclusive club of Ivy League athletes, the Rhodes in recent years has rewarded an array of students who have overcome striking challenges.

This is just bad reporting. The Rhodes was never an “exclusive club of Ivy League athletes.” First of all, the myth that Rhodes Scholars are all athletically gifted and physically fit is just that, a myth. I am living proof of that. Perhaps more significantly, the scholarship stopped demanding evidence of athletic prowess more than three decades ago. But it’s hard to dispel illusions perpetuated by the paper of record. As for being an Ivy League club, how exactly does the selection of a Yale graduate such as Mr. Boudin discount that notion? Anyway, the Rhodes Trust has sought throughout its existence to search for talented individuals outside the Ivy League who “have overcome striking challenges”. For details, see Cowboys Into Gentleman, a history of America’s Rhodes Scholarships.

Among the other winners announced today are Kamyar Cyrus Habib, a Columbia University student from Kirkland, Wash., who is a black belt in karate, a downhill skier and a published photographer — as well as blind; Marianna Ofusu, who attends Howard University in Washington and is a Latin American dance champion; and Devi Shridhar of the University of Miami, who at 18 has mastered five languages, published a book on Indian myths and been admitted to medical school.

Thirteen of the winners are from Ivy League schools, four from Harvard, but the class also includes the first Rhodes scholar from the University of Central Florida, and students at state universities in Indiana, Kansas, Minnesota and Utah.

Established by the will of the British colonialist Cecil Rhodes in 1902, the scholarship offers a bachelor's, master's or doctoral degree at Oxford University, a value estimated at about $30,000 a year. Bill Clinton, Bill Bradley, Byron White and Dean Rusk are among the 2,982 Americans from 305 colleges and universities who have won the award.

Mr. Boudin is not the first child of convicts to be chosen; Adam Ake, the son of a gynecologist convicted of raping patients, was in the Rhodes class of 1997. But the political pedigrees of Mr. Boudin's parents, biological and adoptive, present a contrast with that of the British imperialist who established the prestigious scholarship in his will.

I think Mr. Ake deserves an apology from the Times. What purpose does it serve to embarrass him publically?

"Cecil Rhodes, I don't know what would he think if he were alive today; he'd probably be horrified," Ms. Dohrn, a professor at Northwestern law school, said, laughing, in her office, where snapshots of her children at play are interspersed with the memorabilia of a radical life.

First of all, Rhodes made a point of judging individuals on their own merit, not that of their parents. What would truly horrify him is the idea that the scholarship had been awarded to a pair of inferior Jews such as Mr. Chafetz and myself.

Dennis Hutchinson, a law professor at the University of Chicago who headed the Midwest selection committee, said Mr. Boudin's family did not come up at the Friday night cocktail party or the 20-minute interview Saturday morning, as the winners were whittled from 98 finalists. Those finalists had been selected from 981 university nominees.

"That's one of the wonderful things about institutions, they adapt to the times," Professor Hutchinson, a Rhodes scholar in 1970, said. "This is a guy who talks not only with passion but with mature, thoughtful information about the things he cares about. Those are the sorts of qualities that separate good résumés from the people who are willing to fight the world's fight, as the will says."

Mr. Boudin, who has spoken widely about being the child of inmates and has led antiwar efforts at Yale, plans to study international development at Oxford, expanding on his experiences in Guatemala and Chile. Last week he won the Marshall scholarship, a similar award financing study in Britain, but he plans to accept the Rhodes instead. "As a child, I relished my personal freedom and tried to compensate for my parents' imprisonment," he wrote in his application. "Now, I see prisons around the world: urban misery in Bolivia, homelessness in Santiago and illiteracy in Guatemala."

While the metaphor is charming, I am somewhat disturbed by Mr. Boudin’s failure to mention any of the actual prisons that exist in the world. Naturally, the dungeons of Baghdad are the ones that first come mind. I suspect that illiteracy is much less painful that what inmates in Baghdad must endure. Yet even if Mr. Boudin wanted to avoid tarnishing his antiwar credentials, the least he could’ve done is described the brutality of prison life in China. Hell, even prisons in the US and UK can be brutal. And come to think of it, a savvy antiwar activist should’ve at least come up with something to say about the mistreatment of Palestinians in Israeli jails.

Chesa, once again I have to believe that the Times is presenting you as someone you are not. Was the quotation from your application essay taken out of context? Something has gone wrong.

Mr. Boudin's mother was denied parole in 2001. His father is serving 75 years. Each writes to him nearly every day. His adoptive parents were engulfed by controversy when Sept. 11 coincided with the publication of Mr. Ayers's memoir, "Fugitive Days," which celebrated attempted bombings on the Pentagon.

"We have a different name for the war we're fighting now — now we call it the war on terrorism, then they called it the war on communism," Mr. Boudin said. "My parents were all dedicated to fighting U.S. imperialism around the world. I'm dedicated to the same thing."

I’m confused. Wasn’t the Soviet Union the aggressive imperialist of the Cold War? Mr. Boudin’s comments are especially strange coming from an indvidual who majored in history at Yale. Back when I majored in history at Yale, I had the privilege of being taught by John Lewis Gaddis, the foremost historian of the Cold War. Without evading American failures -- both moral and strategic -- Prof. Gaddis made it very clear that there is no place for Mr. Boudin’s moral relativism in assessments of the era.

As for the so-called war on terror, I have to wonder whether it is Osama Bin Laden’s vision of a totalitarian Islamic world-state rather than the American vision of a democratic Middle East that counts as imperialism.

Oh, and as for Mr. Boudin’s parents dedication to fighting imperialism, would someone care to explain how robbing banks in New York is relevant to that objective?

"I don't know that much about my parents' tactics; I'll talk about my tactics," he added. "The historical moment we find ourselves in determines what is most appropriate for social change."

Chesa, I’m losing faith in you. Are you trying to excuse what your parents did? Are you suggesting that the ethical imperatives which guide your activism today were not relevant in your parents’ time? While I can understand that you might not want to investigate painful episodes from the past, if you are going to make such statements you should know a lot more about your parents’ tactics. In case you do want to know what your parents and step-parents were involved in, click here for a summary. For a longer account, read the book your step-father wrote.

Mr. Boudin said that with four loving parents, he was always surrounded by high expectations, unlike many other children of convicts. He sees his name — Swahili for "dancing feet," chosen because he was born breech — as a metaphor for his approach to life (though actual dancing is among his few weaknesses).

For a career, Mr. Boudin plans to focus on international problems because criminal justice is "too close to home." He plans to finish his own memoir this summer. "It's about growing up with parents in prison; it's about growing up in America," he said. "It's about two very different worlds, one of extreme privilege and opportunity, and the other of degradation and humiliation."

Mr. Boudin shunned questions about his parents' prospects for parole, and Mr. Ayers and Ms. Dohrn repeatedly tried to steer the conversation onto the next generation. A red-star revolutionary pin on his jacket, his Weatherman tattoo (and 17 others) hidden from sight, Mr. Ayers smiled as he watched his adopted son, fresh from his Rhodes interview, in the suit that Ms. Dohrn had helped pick.

"You know what I love about listening to Chesa?" Mr. Ayers said. "He confirms the natural cycle that your kids are always so much smarter and better than you."

When your parents are terrorists, being better and smarter isn’t all that much of an achievment…

Chesa, I’m sorry. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion