When Salman Rushdie gave the 1996 Commencement Address at Bard College, he explained that he was nearly prevented from graduating from Cambridge in 1968 because of inappropriate footwear:
I went to the ceremony wearing brown shoes, and was promptly plucked out of the parade of my gowned and properly black-shod contemporaries, and ordered back to my quarters to change....I gave in, sprinted off to change my shoes, got back to the parade in the nick of time; and at length, after these vicissitudes, when my turn came, I was required to hold a university officer by his little finger, and to follow him slowly up to where the vice-chancellor sat upon a mighty throne. As instructed, I knelt at his feet, held up my hands, palms together, in a gesture of supplication, and begged in Latin for the degree....
My daughter's commencement ceremony required no Latin supplications, nor did anyone get plucked out of line for wearing inappropriate shoes, and when the ceremony was over, she had the sense to take off her fancy high heels and slip on some flip-flops. She gets an A+ for footwear management. Now let's see how she manages the rest of her life!
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