THE head of St Andrews University is being bombarded with hate mail by anti-abortion campaigners following the decision to give Hillary Clinton an honorary degree.
Professor Louise Richardson has received dozens of emails – one of which compared Clinton’s honour with giving Hitler an award for the holocaust.
The former US Secretary of State, who has frequently back the pro-choice side of the abortion debate, is getting her honorary degree in recognition of her human rights work.
The university has issued an uncompromising response to the email campaign, saying it is “immune to “intimidation and intolerance”.
The emails started to arrive after the London based Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) launched a protest against the university award.
The group have been encouraging people to directly email Professor Richardson, who is the principal of the centuries-old institution..
In one email, said to have been sent by a Professor AP O’Beachain, Professor Richardson was told: “When history is written you will see that giving a degree to Mrs Clinton will be like honouring Adolf Hitler for ridding Germany of Jews and Mao Tse Tung for turning China’s fields into factories and killing millions.”
An American pro-lifer stated: “I would say you are fools for having anyone who has such a hard core leftist agenda speak at your college. This woman has no conscience.”
Mother of eight and pro-lifer, Went Walker, 63, from Luton, said that she thought the university award was “mind boggling” and “abhorrent” and accused the university of “condoning the murder of children.”
And Brendan Dawson, 68, from Newcastle, added: “I believe it is intrinsically evil to destroy life in the womb. For social convenience it happens so often. It’s a travesty of human justice that this woman is being offered a humanitarian award.”
Over the years, Clinton has made it clear that she is pro-choice when it comes to the debate on abortion.
Her visit to the university on September 13 and 14 is part of St Andrews celebrations to mark its 600th anniversary.
Clinton is to be honoured for her efforts in campaigning for education, human rights, democracy, civil society and promoting opportunities for females around the world.
A spokesman for St Andrews University said: “As a university, we stand for freedom of thought, freedom of expression and a willingness to listen to and learn from the views of all.
“It’s in our DNA. By the same measure, we are intrinsically immune to intimidation and intolerance.”
“We’ve had an unprecedented response from thousands of people who want to attend or witness our 600th anniversary graduation ceremony where Secretary Clinton, the Right Reverend Dr Rowan Williams, Professor Sir Tim-Berners Lee and Professor Judith Butler are among 18 prominent intellectuals who will be awarded honorary degrees.
