University Republicans invite Ann Coulter to speak. University President and others speak out in oppostion. Coulter summarily uninvited. Could this be a trend?

So apparently the College Republican club invited Coulter to come for a Q and A with their members. However this did not go down well with many of the other University students, nor with the President of the University, Father Joseph McShane, who wrote the following:

The College Republicans, a student club at Fordham University, has invited Ann Coulter to speak on campus on November 29. The event is funded through student activity fees and is not open to the public nor the media. Student groups are allowed, and encouraged, to invite speakers who represent diverse, and sometimes unpopular, points of view, in keeping with the canons of academic freedom. Accordingly, the University will not block the College Republicans from hosting their speaker of choice on campus. 

To say that I am disappointed with the judgment and maturity of the College Republicans, however, would be a tremendous understatement. There are many people who can speak to the conservative point of view with integrity and conviction, but Ms. Coulter is not among them. Her rhetoric is often hateful and needlessly provocative — more heat than light — and her message is aimed squarely at the darker side of our nature. 

As members of a Jesuit institution, we are called upon to deal with one another with civility and compassion, not to sling mud and impugn the motives of those with whom we disagree or to engage in racial or social stereotyping. In the wake of several bias incidents last spring, I told the University community that I hold out great contempt for anyone who would intentionally inflict pain on another human being because of their race, gender, sexual orientation, or creed. 

“Disgust” was the word I used to sum up my feelings about those incidents. Hate speech, name-calling, and incivility are completely at odds with the Jesuit ideals that have always guided and animated Fordham. 

Still, to prohibit Ms. Coulter from speaking at Fordham would be to do greater violence to the academy, and to the Jesuit tradition of fearless and robust engagement. Preventing Ms. Coulter from speaking would counter one wrong with another. The old saw goes that the answer to bad speech is more speech. This is especially true at a university, and I fully expect our students, faculty, alumni, parents, and staff to voice their opposition, civilly and respectfully, and forcefully. 

The College Republicans have unwittingly provided Fordham with a test of its character: do we abandon our ideals in the face of repugnant speech and seek to stifle Ms. Coulter’s (and the student organizers’) opinions, or do we use her appearance as an opportunity to prove that our ideas are better and our faith in the academy — and one another — stronger? We have chosen the latter course, confident in our community and in the power of decency and reason to overcome hatred and prejudice. 

Joseph M. McShane, S.J., President

Wow, that is a pretty powerful and well reasoned statement.

The letter from Father McShane was posted just yesterday at Salon, and by that evening the College Republicans had decided that Coulter was NOT the sort of conservative representative that they wanted to be associated with, and took back their invitation, while also issuing THIS statement:

The College Republicans regret the controversy surrounding our planned lecture featuring Ann Coulter. The size and severity of opposition to this event have caught us by surprise and caused us to question our decision to welcome her to Rose Hill. Looking at the concerns raised about Ms. Coulter, many of them reasonable, we have determined that some of her comments do not represent the ideals of the College Republicans and are inconsistent with both our organization’s mission and the University’s. We regret that we failed to thoroughly research her before announcing; that is our error and we do not excuse ourselves for it. Consistent with our strong disagreement with certain comments by Ms. Coulter, we have chosen to cancel the event and rescind Ms. Coulter’s invitation to speak at Fordham. We made this choice freely before Father McShane’s email was sent out and we became aware of his feelings – had the President simply reached out to us before releasing his statement, he would have learned that the event was being cancelled. We hope the University community will forgive the College Republicans for our error and continue to allow us to serve as its main voice of the sensible, compassionate, and conservative political movement that we strive to be. We fell short of that standard this time, and we offer our sincere apologies. 

Ted Conrad, President 
Emily Harman, Vice President 
Joe Campagna, Treasurer 
John Mantia, Secretary

Personally I was stuck by the civility demonstrated by both sides in this matter, which of course goes to illustrate just how poor of a choice it would have been to introduce the hateful rhetoric of Ann Coulter onto their campus.

It also gave me a little hope that perhaps this 2012 election may result in a beneficial side effect that impacts our political discourse moving forward.

As identified by David Frum yesterday, and of course pointed out by jubilant progressive pundits every day since the election, the conservatives have allowed themselves to be so completely cut off from information which contradicts their rigid point of view that, despite binders full of information to the contrary, they had convinced themselves that Mitt Romney was going to win Tuesday's election in a landslide.

When that did not happen they tried to attack the media, the Obama campaign, and essentially reality itself for denying them the victory they simply KNEW was coming their way.

And it was people like Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, Dick Morris, and Rush Limbaugh that told them those lies, and tricked them into looking like idiots.

So maybe, just maybe, (After exhausting every possible conspiracy theory of course) the Republicans will start to move away from the conservative spinmeisters, and bullshit artists, employed by Fox news and Right Wing radio and start to actually pay attention to something we progressives call "facts." I know it helps progressives to win elections when these people are all hopped up on stupid, but it DOESN'T help us to move this country forward. And in the end isn't THAT far more important then  simply putting numbers on the scoreboard?