BETHLEHEM, Pa. — Lehigh University is hosting former President George W. Bush for a talk on democracy Thursday evening, with journalists barred from the room as part of what the university called “event arrangements.”
Bush is joining Lehigh President Joseph J. Helble at Stabler Arena for the conversation, which begins at 6 p.m. Lehigh’s announcement said the event was full and had a waitlist.
Audience questions had to be submitted in advance, with no word on how they will be chosen, The Brown and White reported. With outside reporters kept out, Brian Fife, chair of Lehigh’s political science department, said he knew of no way the talk would leave a public record.
The limits have drawn criticism from faculty, students and student groups. The Student Political Action Coalition, a Lehigh student group known as SPAC, planned a demonstration from 4 to 8 p.m. at Rauch Fieldhouse, across from Stabler Arena, according to a post by the Lehigh Valley Democratic Socialists of America sharing the plan.
“While we welcome interest in most high-profile campus events, members of the media are not able to attend this particular program as part of event arrangements,” Amy White, Lehigh’s director of media relations, said in an email. She said the university will share an official recap and select high-resolution photographs after the event. Lehigh has not said what the arrangements are or who set them.
About half of the registered attendees are Lehigh students, White said, including reporters for The Brown and White, who will attend as students. Fife estimated the crowd at 800 to 1,000.
On Wednesday, Lehigh posted a video on Instagram in which Helble lists recent campus visitors, from Republican U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick to former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, and defends hosting Bush.
“Some may feel we should play it safe, not invite political leaders to campus, or at least not invite any that we might disagree with,” Helble said. “How is that consistent with a thoughtful, curious, intellectual community that is interested in drawing its own conclusions?”
The talk opens this year’s Compelling Perspectives series, which Lehigh launched in 2023 as a forum for civil discourse. Fife said the president’s office organized the event and his department has no role in it.
In an August letter to the editor of The Brown and White, Dean Caivano, an assistant professor of political science at Lehigh, faulted the university’s announcement for praising Bush’s tax cuts, trade agreements, education policy and environmental initiatives while leaving out the Iraq War, Guantánamo Bay, torture, warrantless surveillance and the expansion of presidential power.
Caivano called on Lehigh to let The Brown and White and other media attend, release an unedited recording, explain how questions will be selected and disclose Bush’s speaking fee and how the event is paid for. Lehigh has not said what it is paying Bush or how the event is funded. Caivano declined to answer questions for this story.
Fife said he read the letter and sees it as an argument that open dialogue is valuable but that the more unsavory parts of the Bush era should be discussed openly. He declined to endorse or rebut Caivano’s points, saying he preferred to talk about the health of American democracy.
Fife said he supports bringing diverse perspectives to campus and called the visit a notable achievement, since former presidents rarely give talks at universities. He called criticism of the closed format an obvious point but said what happens after Bush leaves campus matters more.
He listed disagreements of his own with the Bush era: the disputed 2000 election and the Supreme Court’s role in it, budget deficits and the No Child Left Behind education law. Lehigh is a private institution, he said, but it should be as transparent as possible. He did not directly answer whether he would want to know the speaking fee or how audience questions are screened.
Faramarz Farbod, a political science professor at Moravian University, was more pointed. He said a university’s mission is to make space for differing views and serious questioning of them, and that Lehigh fails that mission if it limits questions and the public’s access.
Farbod said Lehigh could have refused Bush’s terms and, having accepted them, should publish records of its negotiations so the public can judge whether it resisted. He said he believes Bush committed war crimes in launching the Iraq War and should be in prison, a view he said rests on the Nuremberg precedent.
Farbod, Fife and Brian Creech, chair of Lehigh’s journalism and communication department, spoke on a SPAC panel on Bush’s legacy Monday, Oct. 19. Farbod said up to 50 people attended, and that when a student raised the idea of protest, the panelists broadly endorsed collective action by students. He said he would join students outside Stabler Arena if he had the time.
Avery Nudell-Cook, founding president of the student group BridgeLehigh, said before the talk that he planned to attend and expected an interesting conversation, having been to many Compelling Perspectives talks. Asked whether barring the press conflicts with the event’s focus on bridging divides, he said he was unsure because he did not know Lehigh’s reasons, and suggested safety or contract terms could be involved.
Tasfia Ahmad, one of SPAC’s organizers, said she does not consider Bush a compelling perspective. She cited the Iraq invasion, which she said rested on weapons claims that proved unfounded, and the federal response to Hurricane Katrina.
“My concern is not that a campus should avoid controversial speakers, but that an invitation should include meaningful opportunities to question their record and their responsibility to affected communities,” Ahmad said.
She said it was concerning that Lehigh did not push back on the terms, calling it unfortunate but “unsurprising.” She said she planned to attend the talk and join the demonstration.
Joel Atkinson, communications coordinator for the Lehigh Valley DSA, said the group is not organizing the demonstration and its members have not voted to endorse it, but it is sharing the announcement alongside its own flier condemning Bush. He said the group does not think Lehigh should have invited Bush and sees the press restrictions as consistent with Bush’s legacy.
Luz Tavarez, editor-in-chief of The Comenian, Moravian’s student newspaper, said barring journalists runs against the event’s own theme of democratic values.
“Journalism is the bedrock of society’s freedom; excluding the press could be a form of censorship, leading to selective, biased information being released to the public,” Tavarez said.
