St. Kate's backs out of the political ring

St. Catherines college, a Catholic women's college in St. Paul, MN, has turned down speaking engagements with Senator Hillary Clinton, conservative political commentator Bay Buchanan and Minnesota's Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Al Franken. In an interview with the Star Tribune that the decision was about fairness.

"In a perfect world, at the outset, we could say we could have three Republicans, three Democrats and three Independents," Hegranes said. "We could say we are perfectly balanced. We would like to do that. But in this semester we didn't have that advance opportunity to do that."

She also said that the guests will are welcome to speak on the campus any time after November 4th, but students are worried that their chance of meeting and listening to such substantial political figures would have then passed.

One student at St. Catherine says she's frustrated with the decision. "I understand they want to be fair, but what's fair about depriving all of us of such a great opportunity," said the student in an e-mail interview. She asked her identity remain confidential.