Don’t you hate it when people such as Ann Coulter are right? That’s the upshot of her abruptly canceled talk on illegal immigration at the University of California at Berkeley. She threw a strategic fit and cried foul. Coulter had been invited by campus Republicans, and Berkeley officials–not wanting to risk riotous behavior that accompanied the recent appearance of a former Breitbart editor–called it off for security concerns. Coulter has a right to speak.
Free speech, if it is to remain properly ensconced as part of a sacrosanct Bill of Rights, can’t be subject to ideological cherry picking. Coulter, however obnoxiously off-putting to non-right wingers, wasn’t going to incite insurrection. She would have addressed, in her own inimitably annoying fashion, a valid–however emotional, controversial and politically partisan–issue. If she’s on the wrong side of that issue, shouldn’t she be given the forum to out herself?
Or should there be a new First Amendment exception for hot topics that can’t be trusted to a crowd of politically partisan university students, who have presumably earned their way into higher education? Is this the counterpart of canceling, say, Elizabeth Warren at Liberty University?
Neither is acceptable.
Here’s what you do. Plan accordingly. That means professional, common-sense security measures, but it also means announcing the ground rules well in advance. And it also means time to allow campus leaders to make the manifestly obvious point that rioting or summarily canceling reflects poorly on the non-Coulter fan base and related causes. It makes it all too easy for the usual haters to stereotype progressives as hypocrites and the real agents of intolerance.
Whether it’s Coulter or Warren or Sean Hannity or Rachel Maddow speaking, make them part of a broader forum with other speakers and plenty of time for serious Q&A. If the speaker doesn’t agree to that, then cancel away in good conscience–not bad faith.