Messiah College students react to Frances Fox Piven lecture openly, critically

Via The Scottcarp Dream

Frances Fox Piven had never been to a Christian college before she gave Tuesday’s lecture at Messiah College.

“I didn’t know what to expect. Was it going to be something like Bob Jones University, I wondered,” she said to a crowd of 240 squeezed into Parmer Theater and other rooms in Boyer Hall.

“You know, I’ve had a great day. I think I have a lot in common with a lot of people in this room,” Piven said.

Piven, 79, is a political science professor at City University of New York. Her honor-laden resume led to her being chosen to give Messiah’s annual American Democracy Lecture.

But Piven’s also a popular target of Glenn Beck, Fox News, right-wing blogs and the tea party movement.

And judging from the eye-rolling and snickering from many middle-aged attendees and some students, Piven’s audience didn’t agree that they shared common ground.

News that she was coming to the midstate had mobilized members of local tea party groups. Extra security was called in. But there were no skirmishes.

Until recent years, Piven incited passion mostly in other scholars.

Then conservative commentator Glenn Beck took to calling called her “an enemy of the Constitution.” He blasted Piven for calling on unemployed workers to stage protests on the scale of riots that shook Greece last year.

Messiah student Phil Strunk asked Piven to explain herself.

“It kind of sounded like a declaration of violence to me,” Strunk said.

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