TEMPE, Ariz. — President Barack Obama didn’t shy away from the “snub” by Arizona State University officials who said he didn’t deserve an honorary degree because he hadn’t accomplished enough yet. In a commencement speech Wednesday to a stadium full of young graduates, he said the officials were right.
“I come here not to dispute the suggestion that I haven’t yet achieved enough in my life,” Obama said. “I come to affirm that one’s title, even a title like ‘president of the United States,’ says very little about how well one’s life has been led.”
Obama challenged the graduates to find new sources of energy, to improve schools and never to rely on past achievement. Instead of awarding Obama and honorary degree, the university renamed a scholarship for him.
