Most people aren’t particularly enthusiastic about the possibility of having Ann Coulter ’84 back on campus. Provost Michael Kotlikoff, who reportedly reacted to the pitch by saying, “Oh, that’s a great idea,” clearly isn’t most people.
The Sun recently broke the news that the University has apparently invited Coulter to appear on campus. One could not overstate the irony of the University pushing to host a bombastic bigot at the same time as it dictatorially cracks down on protest.
If this was a true year of free expression and not a PR scheme, there would be no problem inviting controversial speakers like Coulter to campus. But this isn’t and was never about free speech for all — this is about winning over conservative donors. President Martha Pollack, it’s not free speech when it’s bought and paid for by donors.
The University isn’t making any special effort to platform the likes of Prof. Russell Rickford, history — in fact, according to Faculty Senator Richard Bensel, there was an internal push within the administration to intimidate and at least temporarily remove Rickford for his incendiary language.
Why, then, is the administration reversing its approach when it comes to Coulter, choosing to rally behind a talking head whose laundry list of violent, racist remarks would make the Grand Dragon of the KKK blush?
Does the University hold white conservatives to a different standard than everyone else? What Rickford said is morally contemptible, certainly, but it was a one-off remark. Coulter, on the other hand, has made a career out of statements, which, if repeated by campus progressives, would be fireable offenses by the administration’s standards.
The Sun will let a few Coulter-isms speak for themselves:
In the immediate aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, Coulter said: “We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. We weren’t punctilious about locating and punishing only Hitler and his top officers. We carpet-bombed German cities; we killed civilians. That’s war. And this is war.”
“My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the ‘New York Times’ Building,” the anti-press provocateur once said.
“It would be a much better country if women did not vote,” according to Coulter.
“Why don’t you go back to your own country?” Coulter asked in a tirade against former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley, who was born and raised in the U.S.
“We just want Jews to be perfected, as they say,” Coulter said in a talk show appearance in 2007.
On an ideal campus, there’s a place for everyone, including inflammatory public figures. On an ideal campus, yes, even Coulter is allowed to speak, but so is everyone else, whether the University likes it or not. On an ideal campus, peaceful protesters aren’t referred to administrators for disciplinary action.
Obviously, the administration doesn’t want an ideal campus. What it wants is to pull Cornell as far away from democracy as possible. Free speech doesn’t exist here, at least for those whose opinions run up against what the University is willing to hear.
When it comes to free expression, The Sun supports viewpoint-neutral consistency: Everyone should be allowed to nonviolently say their piece and no speaker should be shut down, whether by the University or by students. Coulter’s apparent invitation is just a distraction, a way for Cornell to claim that it permits controversial speech when, in reality, it extends that guarantee only to a select few.
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