Hateful speech revisited
Nicole Hoplin is a graduate of St. Olaf College and assistant to the president of the Young America's Foundation, the group that paid the fee for Ann Coulter's talk at St. Olaf College (in part) and paid for her talk at St. Thomas (in full) last month. She has submitted the following column to the Minneapolis Star Tribune and the St. Paul Pioneer Press:
Ann Coulter’s speeches at St. Olaf College and St. Thomas University captivated students! That is why Fr. Dease’s labeling of Ann Coulter’s speech as "hateful" shocked me. I was there, and I should know.
Fr. Dease could have made a statement by attending the lecture to show that his college embraces ideological diversity, yet instead, he relies on those who were most inflamed by Coulter’s comments, and publicly proclaims Ms. Coulter’s speech was "hateful." Father Dease’s statement was mean-spirited. He has, himself, created an environment of hostility towards conservatives at St. Thomas with his statement.
And, all the while, as Brit Hume of FOX News wrote on the FOX website, "He [Dease] never cited anything Coulter said, or even anything he had heard she said. As for the Star Tribune’s story [by Matt McKinney], it never cited anything Coulter actually said either." Minnesota, the home of Al Franken who calls Rush Limbaugh a "big, fat idiot," should understand occasional sarcastic humor.
As a life-long Minnesotan (I’m moving back in early June), I want my news sources to include the details—describe what Coulter said that deserved the label "hate speech," rather than simply attacking a too rare conservative appearance.
Coulter’s speeches brought hundreds of young people to her events and have left them debating and discussing the merits of her ideas. Personally, I can’t think of a better outcome for a campus speech—nor can I think of the last time a liberal generated such interest on a campus in Minnesota.
As a St. Olaf College graduate, a conservative, and the assistant to the president at Young America’s Foundation, yes, the organization that sponsored Coulter’s lecture at St. Thomas, it has become my life’s work to ensure that young people are presented with conservatism at some point while they’re in college.
My enthusiasm for the Coulter event at St. Olaf couldn’t have been higher—as a conservative St. Olaf alumna, it was my first time back to the campus to see a speaker I admire present her ideas to the student body. Yet, the St. Olaf event left me wondering, what kind of community fosters an intellectual and spiritual journey that elicits questions such as, "Ann, are you a virgin?"
The speech was held in the campus chapel, a place for me that is both special and spiritual. My husband proposed to me in that chapel during our senior year, and we’ve been happily married now for three years. Like many in the St. Olaf community, the Sunday services and daily chapel impacted my character and continues to do so even today.
But, the outright rudeness towards Ann Coulter taints those warm memories. I’ve never heard the "F---" word in a place of worship, nor do I ever hope to in the future. Why would students wear t-shirts suggesting, "Rape Ann Coulter"? Were these attendees fostered by their educators to be intolerant, hateful, and rude?
A March 2005 poll found that 72% of college professors identify themselves as liberal! Today’s campuses swarm with liberal ideas from professors, administrators, and even university presidents. Why is it that students should not listen to ideas that may be different from the ones constantly infiltrated into their daily lives for two hours, one night/afternoon out of one school year? After all, Howard Zinn and Jesse Ventura both recently spoke at St. Olaf. It seems to me that a conservative’s presence is a fair expression of intellectual balance.
Ann Coulter attracted more students at St. Thomas than could even attend the event! Students heard conservative ideas—yes, they may agree or they may have disagreed. But for a university president to deride her appearance the very week she appeared on the cover of TIME magazine suggests to me that he no longer wishes his university to have a worthy discussion with today’s most visible leaders. I’d challenge him to put together a comparable event with someone he deems "non-controversial" who will attract such interest or create such memories for St. Thomas students.
Ms. Coulter took questions from students following her remarks to foster a dialogue of ideas. Dease’s criticism of the Coulter event (after not attending it), prematurely shut down the debate of ideas. What does it say for the future of intellectual diversity on campus if students become afraid to put a speaker with different ideas in front of a student audience?
Indeed, both St. Thomas and St. Olaf should reevaluate the communities they are creating for students of all intellectual tendencies when they foster a hostile environment for one of the nation’s leading conservatives.
-- Powerlineblog.com, 5/4/05
People like Ward Churchill whom establishment journalism calls "dissidents" are establishment "dissidents." That's an oxymoron, of course.And people who actually are dissidents from the establishment which is journalism's consensus don't get favorable mention as dissidents but are slammed as "conservatives," "right wingers, or "right wing extremists."