Amid rumors of flying vegetables and sign-wielding protesters, former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft delivered his lecture to more than 600 students, faculty and community members at Skidmore College Wednesday evening. 

The event, which was presented directly to an audience in the Gannett Auditorium and simulated into two different venues on campus, required extra campus security and the presence of the Saratoga Police Department in response to the defacement of a poster advertising the lecture earlier in the week.

Prior to the event, Skidmore Democrat Club President Benjamin Yelin sent a memo across campus to be respectful and counter the Republican former attorney with intelligent and well thought out questions, he said.

After a glowing introduction by co-presidents of the Skidmore Young Republicans Club, co-president Thomas Qualtere urged the mostly-liberal audience to keep all questions “short, concise and respectful.”

In good humor, Ashcroft began his speech by thanking Qualtere and his co-president Skyler Parkhurt for not mentioning the elections he had lost, including the 2000 election when he lost a seat on the senate to his opponent who had deceased prior to the election. 

The lecture, titled “Leadership in Challenging Times” discussed protecting the liberties of a free nation in a post-9/11 world. 

“The world will never be the same,” he said.  “We needed to make changes to keep enjoying our liberties.  The system is designed to give you what you are getting.  If you don’t like what you are getting, change what you are doing.”

A portion of his 45-minute lecture was aimed at defending and explaining the highly controversial Patriot Act, which he helped to create less than one week after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. 

With “evil chemistry and evil biology, the capacity for destruction has gone up and we can’t ignore that,” he said.  The advancements in technology have added new levels of destructiveness and access is available to nation-states and individuals alike, adding a new threat of terrorism, he explained. 

“Given the scale of destruction with modern technology, in a sense, we were lucky to only lose 3,000 people on 9/11,” he added.

The Patriot Act was designed to avert further terrorism by preventing attacks by means of surveillance which some Americans believe is an unfair invasion of privacy. 

“Think of yourself in nature,” Ashcroft said in defense of the act.  “You are truly free, and one would think that any laws would diminish freedom.  No - some laws make freedom better,” he said in reference to laws against rape and murder. 

“People complain about security at airports but our central virtue is liberty, and some laws make liberty more valuable,” he said.

Following the lecture, Ashcroft opened the floor to questions from the audience, mostly students, knowing that he would be on the defensive for his conservative beliefs. 

“I’m in a target rich environment,” he said.  “Take advantage of it.”

Temperatures flared during the question and answer portion as students asked questions that they may have already known the answer to, with one student reduced to tears when asking about women’s rights and abortion.

“You said that we should enact laws that make us freer,” said one student.  “As a gay man, how does the defense of marriage act make me freer?” 

Ashcroft simply replied that he is free to be in a relationship, but that it is reasonable for the culture to assign “special value” to couples that will help to build the next generation. 

“What about sterile couples,” another student asked, to which there was no reply. 

He also tackled questions concerning the war in Iraq, Operation Tips and torture, while proving some students wrong in their facts.  One question he opted out of tackling was a request to sing, asked by Yelin, the president of the Skidmore Democrats.

“I encourage you to sing.  It is an interesting way to share with people and expose yourself to ridicule. Singing is a great way to relate to people, and I think I’ve related to you as well as I think I want to,” Ashcroft responded.  

Senior Jonathan Katz felt it was important to hear Ashcroft’s speech, even it was in disagreement with personal beliefs.

“It’s important to hear all sides as students at a liberal arts college.  I was actually more excited to see a Republican than a Democrat so I could hear his views first hand,” Katz said.  “Some of the students may have been too opinionated and aggressive, but it was great to see that others came out and asked well thought-out and intellectual questions.  It was an effective way to see another viewpoint, even though he didn’t shake my beliefs.”