Ann Coulter ’84, a controversial conservative media personality, is reportedly set to make her return to Cornell’s campus on April 16.
Nadine Strossen, a free speech advocate who formerly served as the president of the American Civil Liberties Union, confirmed Coulter’s agreed-upon date to come back to the Hill in an email to The Sun.
Strossen wrote that Coulter “just told me that [the event] will be on 4/16.”
Strossen originally proposed a Coulter speaking opportunity to Provost Michael Kotlikoff in January. Kotlikoff responded immediately by saying, “‘Oh, that’s a great idea,’” according to Strossen.
Coulter, who helped found the conservative news source The Cornell Review as an undergraduate, has a long history of making discriminatory remarks against minority groups including immigrants, Jews and Muslims.
After The Sun recently broke the news that the University had invited Coulter to campus, Kotlikoff wrote a letter to the editor in The Sun in which he defended his efforts to bring the rightwing pundit back to campus as being in line with Cornell’s dedication to free expression.
“I agreed that there could be few more powerful demonstrations of Cornell’s commitment to free expression than to have Ms. Coulter return to campus and present her views. … I believe that Cornell must be a place where the presentation of ideas is protected and inviolable,” Kotlikoff wrote.
Kotlikoff added that he had “worked with the Federalist Society at Cornell, the Cornell Political Union, the Heterodox Academy Campus Community at Cornell and other Cornell organizations to sponsor such a presentation.”
A spokesperson for Cornell Media Relations could not confirm the date of Coulter’s planned appearance or identify which campus groups would sponsor the event.
Coulter’s scheduled return comes more than a year after she was heckled off stage by a group of student protesters. Students reportedly chanted “No KKK, no fascist USA,” at Coulter, causing her to end her hour-long speaking engagement just 20 minutes in.