Larry Flynt, publisher of Hustler magazine and frequent champion of First Amendment rights, will arrive at Bailey Hall at 8 p.m. this evening, a guest of the Cornell Civil Liberties Union.
Free speech supporters and activists decrying Flynt’s pornographic publication alike are expected in the audience and outside of Bailey to issue some statements of their own.
Plenty of tickets remain for the speech, according to CCLU, although many are expected to purchase their tickets at the door prior to the performance.
Flynt’s appearance at Cornell was publicized at Ithaca College and to the community, and CCLU is counting on many Cornell students buying tickets last minute, after Fall Break plans are solidified.
The publisher’s life was chronicled in the 1996 movie, The People vs. Larry Flynt, starring Woody Harrelson. Since then, Flynt has remained in the media spotlight himself.
He has voraciously sought to expose scandals from within the Republican Party since the Clinton impeachment hearings in 1998, and he maintains a standing $10 million offer to Jenna Bush, the President’s daughter, to pose nude in his magazine.
With Flynt lined up for the Cornell appearance, MSNBC had contacted Robert Kandle, who organized the event for CCLU, with the intention of filming the speech to air in an upcoming episode of the show, “Headliners and Legends with Matt Lauer.”
Then Kandle received another message yesterday from the show’s executive producer, notifying him that MSNBC — which had been in the process of preparing a show on Flynt’s life — would not be coming to Cornell. The change, Kandle said, was addressed to him as a shift in the network’s strategy toward more hard news broadcasting and away from shows like “Headliners.”
The speech will begin with an introduction by long-time Flynt attorney, Paul Cambria, Kandle said.
Archived article by Sun Staff