Ann Coulter Invited Back to Speak at Cornell, a Year After Protesters Shut Down Similar Event
“She has accepted [the invitation] in principle. … She has turned it over to her speaker’s bureau to negotiate important details”
The last time Ann Coulter was at Cornell, the situation got so out of hand that the school apologized to her.
The Cornell Daily Sun reports:
SUN EXCLUSIVE: University Has Reportedly Invited Ann Coulter ’84 Back to Campus
Ann Coulter ’84, a controversial conservative media personality, has reportedly been invited back to speak on campus by the University more than a year after protestors taunted her off stage. Multiple on-campus groups are considering whether to help host the potential event.
Nadine Strossen, a free speech advocate who formerly served as the president of the American Civil Liberties Union, told The Sun that a formal invitation has been extended to Coulter on behalf of the Cornell administration.
“She has accepted [the invitation] in principle. … She has turned it over to her speaker’s bureau to negotiate important details,” Strossen said. “I know she wants to come.”
The decision to bring Coulter back began to materialize after Strossen discussed the idea with Provost Michael Kotlikoff in January at the Board of Trustees meeting in New York.
In the meeting, Kotlikoff responded immediately by saying, “‘Oh, that’s a great idea,’” according to Strossen.
Kotlifkoff did not respond to a request for comment.
These developments come during Cornell’s free expression theme year. In an April 2023 press release announcing the theme, President Martha Pollack wrote that “learning from difference, learning to engage with difference and learning to communicate across difference are key parts of the Cornell education.”
On Nov. 10, 2022, Coulter was heckled off the stage at an event organized as a joint effort by The Leadership Institute, a conservative nonprofit, and the Network of Enlightened Women, a campus group for right-wing women, with help from members of Cornell Republicans. Students in attendance chanted, “Your words are violence!” and “We don’t want your ideas here! Leave! Leave!”
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About when I was entering high school, the more well-to-do churches were offering “crying rooms.” This was a room where families with infants could attend services without fear that an episode of fussiness would distract the other communicants, because it was soundproofed. The service was piped in, but the squalling couldn’t get out. Maybe Cornell could put their entire audience in a crying room, and Ann can speak uninterrupted.
Didn’t some of the wimpier schools also offer their sneauxphylaykes “crisis rooms” with coloring books, puppies, blankets and counselors to deal with the “trauma” of having someone like Coulter on campus? I seem to recall a few that did. If I had a kid that like, I would refuse to pay tuition and tell the kid it was on its own and be prepared to load up on student loans. When I went to undergrad, we had controversial speakers, but the college said suck it up or don’t bother attending. We opted for the former.
I don’t think a ‘ crying room ‘ would be needed for the ‘ entire audience’, only for the campus Democrats.
The disruption of Ann Coulter in November 2022 showed a fundamental problem in Cornell’s campus culture with respect to valuing free speech. The fact that Michael Knowles could speak without interruption in Fall 2023 may indicate that Cornell has overcome the problem. Anyone can dispute this claim by saying “Michael Knowles is not as controversial as Ann Coulter.”
So, the only way to put the Ann Coulter episode behind us is to host Ann Coulter successfully and have her speak without disruption.
The irony is that Prof. Russell Rickford hosted as a speaker on campus a man convicted of killing four police officers — a true armed insurrectionist. One would think that the left would distrust such people since Jan 6, dismiss any claim of being a “political prisoner.,” and fight to keep them off campus. Yet, this speaker was a convicted Black Panther who spent his life in jail until he was freed in a COVID amnesty.