We noted yesterday the strong desire by many at the University of Ottawa to prevent controversial American pundit Ann Coulter from speaking on campus.
Well, thanks to an ugly and toxic brew of intimidation, belligerence, and pettiness that speech never happened:
...Coulter was scheduled to speak before an audience gathered at the University of Ottawa’s Marion Hall Tuesday evening.
Instead, security concerns raised by the university kept the Republican firebrand from speaking.
Organizers pulled the plug on the speaking engagement because there were just too many people — too many of whom were just too rowdy.
(...)Hundreds of people pooled into the lobby in an attempt to get into the auditorium. Organizers, who turned away those who didn’t register ahead of time, had allowed about 200 people into the auditorium when the fire alarm was pulled minutes before the talk was set to start.
Reporter Brian Lilley has a detailed account on what transpired:
Of course, free speech did not carry the night at Marion Hall at the U of O.
As usual there were also thugs in the group, one young man must have felt particularly tough surrounded by his friends with placards and bullhorns, he started to pick on an old man. The man, who must have 50 or more years older than the student, gave as good as he got and eventually one of the thugs friends told him that picking on people over 70 was not a wise idea.
(...)
But to the students, Coulter threatened their “safe space” so they ensured that the campus of one of Canada’s older universities was not a safe space for her. Shame. Shame on them, shame on the university for letting things get so out of control.
Indeed. How shameful and embarrassing it is that in this country in this day and age a speech at a major public university would be cancelled out of concern for the speaker's safety.
Keep in mind, of course, these are the same campus radicals who eagerly support and embrace the odious Israeli Apartheid Week each year at the University of Ottawa. They are enthusiastic boosters of free speech when it comes to the parade of Israel bashers on campus each year - people like Omar Barghouti (more on him here, here, and here).
However, when it comes to someone they disagree with, well.. we've seen what happens then.
Colby Cosh makes an excellent point:
...what about the students’ right to hear Ann Coulter, or any other obnoxious political performance artist whose views they might like to entertain? Did they win too? Did they get exactly what they wanted? If we rebranded freedom to speech as the freedom to hear, as Robin Hanson has proposed, would the real nature of the harm be clearer?
When conservative students connect the dots and figure out that they too can assemble mobs and pull fire alarms—heaven forbid that there should ever be two sides to such undignified situationist power contests; the worst people are guaranteed to win no matter what—will we all greet that development with a dismissive sigh?
Probably not. Colby also files this fascinating dispatch on the chat he had with Ms. Coulter.
UPDATE: Tarek Fatah puts it well:
I share none of her views, but she has the right to speak. This is a serious setback to Free Speech and a victory for thugs and goons.
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