Hecklers Cause Coulter to Cut UConn Speech

AP ^ | 12/7/5 | SHELLEY K. WONG

[SmithL]

STORRS, Conn. - Conservative columnist Ann Coulter gave up trying to finish a speech at the University of Connecticut on Wednesday night when boos and jeers from the audience became overwhelming. Coulter cut off the talk after 15 minutes and instead held a half-hour question-and-answer session.

"I love to engage in repartee with people who are stupider than I am," Coulter told the 2,600 people at Jorgensen Auditorium.

Coulter's appearance prompted protests from several groups, including Students Against Hate and the Puerto Rican/Latin American Cultural Center. They criticized her for spreading a message of hate and intolerance.

Nearly 100 students gathered inside the Student Union for a rally against Coulter. About a half-dozen people held protest signs outside the auditorium.

After a book signing following her appearance, Coulter called the audience's reaction "typical."

Coulter, originally from New Canaan, Conn., has a history of bashing Democrats in best-selling books, frequent television appearances and speeches. Harding University in Arkansas dropped her from its lecture series in September, citing her abrasive image.

Last April, the president of the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota denounced a speech on the campus by Coulter, calling it hateful. In October 2004, University of Arizona police arrested two men who ran on stage and threw custard pies at Coulter; one of the pies glanced off her shoulder.

In her speech at UConn, Coulter called Bill Clinton an "executive buffoon" who won the presidency only because Ross Perot took 19 percent of the vote. She called California Sen. Barbara Boxer a good candidate for the Democrats because "she is a woman and she's learning disabled."

During the question-and-answer session, someone asked Coulter if she really was against a woman's right to vote.

"Not having women vote is a joke," she said, reversing comments she has previously made.

Eric Knudsen, a 19-year-old sophomore journalism and social welfare major at UConn, didn't attend the speech.

"We encourage diverse opinion at UConn, but this is blatant hate speech," said Knudsen, head of Students Against Hate.

Kareem Mohni, a 20-year-old junior and a member of a campus Republicans group, said he was disgusted with the Jorgensen crowd.

"It really appalled me that we're not able to come together as a group and listen to a different view in a respectful environment," he said.

[LostInBayport]

Sarcasm assumes a reliance upon logic. That is, one makes logical statements illogical and by doing so, expects others to follow along. Libs, on the other hand, rely on their own emotions a lot more, and we all know that sarcasm and appeals to the emotion just don't mix. That alone makes them sound pretentious.

That's so true...the liberals in my work and social circles are astonishingly bad at sarcasm. There is no humor in it because the words come out with anger. And if they 'talk like a conservative' in jest, it gives me the opportunity to praise their conversion. Being liberals, they cannot laugh at that, and get all red and quite mad!

[who knows what evil?]

Colleges, especially state-run colleges, should be compelled to provide security sufficient to protect campus speakers and vigorously prosecute disrupters. Conservative legal advocacy groups need to take colleges like the University of Connecticut, to court for failure to protect the First Amendment rights of Ann Coulter and those who wanted to hear what she had to say. University administrators may not want to protect the freedom of speech for conservatives, but they fear expensive lawsuits.

In addition; here's an interesting idea from another thread...

It's time to enact laws pointed directly at people who threaten democracy.

I would like to see a Federal law that would pull funding from any university that do not take effective measures to prevent disruption in classrooms and at speeches by invited speakers.

That, alone, would ensure that conservatives have a chance to be heard on campus, and put sanctions on those who interfere.

[This Just In]

I should have pointed out that I was being sarcastic. I understand clearly the double standard to which liberals live by.

[M1Tanker]

I guessed as much. Sarcasm is difficult with the written word. I was just trying to cover many of the points made by various people. But then, when I try to be sarcastic, sometimes my humor and desert sand have a lot in common so no complaints here.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

They criticized her for spreading a message of hate and intolerance.

As they spread their message of hate and intolerance.