More than 200 Furman University students and faculty members are objecting to the school’s first visit by a sitting U.S. president, criticizing the Bush administration’s handling of the Iraq war and environmental issues.

President Bush is scheduled to give Furman’s graduation speech on May 31 at this fairly conservative school of 2,625 undergraduate students with Baptist roots in the state’s traditionally conservative Upstate region.

Earlier this month, 222 students and faculty members signed and posted on the school’s Web site a statement titled “We Object,” which outlines objections to the president’s visit. The statement cites the war in Iraq and the administration’s “obstructing progress on reducing greenhouse gases while favoring billions in tax breaks and subsidies to oil companies that are earning record profits.”

Click here to view the statement.

“We are ashamed of the actions of this administration. The war in Iraq has cost the lives of over 4,000 brave and honorable U.S. military personnel,” they wrote. “Because we love this country and the ideals it stands for, we accept our civic responsibility to speak out against these actions that violate American values.”

The school said the event would mark the first time a sitting president has visited the school in its 182-year history. Some protesters said they will skip the Bush speech entirely, others said they plan to attend the ceremony, perhaps wearing arm bands in protest.

“Under ordinary circumstances, it would be an honor for Furman University to be visited by the President of the United States,” reads the protest statement. “However, these are not ordinary circumstances.”

A message left for a White House spokesman was not immediately returned. Furman president David Shi released a statement saying the university supported its members’ rights to speak their minds.

“Such inflamed disputes can be worthwhile for many reasons, not the least of which is that they offer opportunities to reaffirm the university’s foundational commitment to the free exchange of ideas,” Shi said. “How well a university balances competing ideas is an index to its health.”

The campus community is preparing for several related events leading up to the president’s visit.

A seven-part lecture series, “Assessing the Bush Presidency,” is set to begin Thursday, and some of the students who signed the statement are organizing a public reading of the names of U.S. troops killed in Iraq.

One of the professors who helped gather the signatories said she felt a professional compulsion to make her views known.

“For me, I’m an ethicist. How could I not be upset about Bush’s torture policy?” bioethics professor Carmela Epright said Monday. “I would be reneging on my professional ethical policy not to criticize that.”

Epright said she helped get the effort going after the visit was announced, sending an e-mail to professors she felt were in sync with her political views. Some students also took up the cause, setting up tables in the student center to gather more signatures. But not all supported the notion, speaking out on an internal message board.

“We underwent a tremendous amount of criticism, with students saying, ’Don’t you dare ruin my graduation,”’ Epright said, adding that she feels the student body is perhaps more conservative than the university’s professors.

Angel Cruz, a biology senior set to graduate on May 31, said she felt compelled to gather student signatures.

“It’s our duty to voice our opinions about what we’re thinking,” said the 21-year-old Burnsville, N.C., native. “It is a political statement. He picked a southern school that’s traditionally very conservative.”

Admitting that she considered dropping out of the effort when she learned her name had been submitted to the White House as an outstanding student whose accomplishments Bush might work into his speech, Cruz said she’s glad she kept working on gathering more signatures.

“I want to be respectful and keep the honor in graduation and honor my fellow graduates and honor Furman,” said Cruz, who won a grant to work in El Salvador after graduation. “We need to voice our opinion and let it be known how we feel about these things.”

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