updated 3:02 p.m. ET April 20, 2007

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. - Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton met Friday with Rutgers women’s basketball coach C. Vivian Stringer, and later proclaimed that Rutgers “has a chance to be the leader of this teachable moment” on standing up to discrimination and marginalization.

The New York senator and Democratic front-runner asked people across the nation to take what she called “the Rutgers pledge.”

“Will you be willing to speak up and say, ‘Enough is enough,’ when women or minorities or the powerless are marginalized or degraded?” Clinton said in her speech to about 700 people at a university forum on women and public leadership.

The event celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Eagleton Institute of Politics and the 35th anniversary of the institute’s Center for American Women and Politics.

Referring to Stringer and her players, Clinton said, “They are living, human markers of our progress in this country, how far we have come, and how much farther we have to go together.”

“She and her players have shown us the difference between bravery and bravado,” Clinton said.

Clinton said she met Friday morning with Stringer, as well as assistant women’s basketball coach Marianne Stanley.

A Rutgers athletics spokeswoman did not immediately return an Associated Press call for comment on how the meeting went.

The Rutgers basketball team were the object of an on-air slur by nationally syndicated radio talk show host Don Imus that resulted in his firing.

Shortly after the Rutgers event, Clinton is to head to New York City to speak at a convention of the Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network.

Clinton was originally scheduled to speak at Rutgers on Monday, but the appearance was postponed after a fierce spring storm caused flooding in the New Brunswick area.

MORE FROM COLLEGE BASKETBALL

College basketball Section Front

UCLA will make noise eventually   Vote: Who will be player of the year? Beyond the Arc: ’Nova facing issues with frosh Seton Hall basketball player charged with DWI Beyond the Arc: Celebrating college hoops’ last Rebels 5 Razorbacks suspended for opener Beyond the Arc: Carolina will be scary good by March Men’s Top 25 preview, analysis, stats, more Davis: Kansas tops 2009-10 hoops storylines Elite scorers, sleeper teams, top conferences, more College basketball Section Front   Add College basketball headlines to your news reader: