Coulter ‘84 Visits Cornell: The Definitive Postmortem

On the night of Wednesday, November 9th, famed Cornell alumna Ann Coulter ‘84 attempted to give a speech on campus. However, she was prevented from delivering her remarks due to eight students who staged interruptions throughout the event. And yet, the story began well before that night.

A week before Coulter was to visit, campus awoke to a sea of pink flyers. The event organizers, silent until then about their plans to invite the commentator to Ithaca, blanketed every major building with advertisements for the event. From the tables of Zeus to the walls of ILR, news of Coulter’s imminent visit was inescapable. Soon after, a plan was hatched to stop the event in its tracks. 

Not long after the flyers were posted and quarter cards distributed were they torn down and thrown away, replaced by papers demanding the cancellation of Coulter’s speech. The Sun featured an op-ed decrying the organizers as Nazi-adjacent fascists. Protests were planned outside the event’s venue—the Landis Auditorium of Cornell Law School’s Myron Taylor Hall. Effigies of Coulter and others were constructed in the Arts Quad, with passers-by induced to throw pies in their direction.

Yet despite the immense pressure on both event organizers and Cornell’s administration, the event was not canceled. Coulter, come Hell or high water, would visit the Ithaca campus on November 9th, the day following the midterm elections. Cornell maintained its commitment to free speech throughout, even prefacing Coulter’s remarks with an advisement/threat from the Assistant Dean of Students promising consequences for disrupting the event.

Yet nobody knew what was to come. No sooner did the event begin than the circus came to town. As Coulter descended the stairs of Landis Auditorium, protestors used small speakers to broadcast circus music. The administration patiently removed the first two disruptors, allowing Coulter to begin speaking.

Coulter began with a brief overview of the midterms, which she described as disastrous for Republicans. So bad were these election returns that she lacked prepared remarks for the evening, and thus would be holding a lengthened question and answer session. However, another set of disruptors immediately began making a racket. This time, raspberries erupted from the left side of Landis Auditorium, prompting several event staff to give the disruptors a warning. Noticing a trend, Coulter asked “why is it always girls going and talking to disruptors?”

After the first four malcontents were removed by the Cornell University Police Department (CUPD), Coulter remarked at the apparent decline of her alma mater. “Usually it’s bush league schools where you get the protesters.” Cornell, until now, had been more “like Harvard” where “they want to challenge you.” Almost immediately thereafter, yet another disruptor rose and began shouting. The protestor’s bit began with “your words are violence” and “we don’t want your ideas here,” then finished with the polite request for Coulter to “Leave! Leave!” Coulter attempted to continue her remarks despite the shouting, but was drowned out. Frustrated with the time taken by CUPD to remove disruptors, Coulter left the auditorium.

After several minutes of confused murmurings among the audience, Sarah Clark—representing the Leadership Institute, one of the groups behind the event—took the podium to ensure that Coulter would be back once more security arrived. Several more officers filed into the back of the auditorium and, after almost 10 minutes of silence, Coulter reemerged.

Yet as Coulter quipped “here’s some more violence for you,” she was immediately accosted by yet another protestor, shouting: “what’s violent is you’re a [censored] fascist.” As he was quickly escorted out, he and a co-conspirator continued to chant: “No KKK, no fascist USA.” While waiting for the two to be ushered out of earshot, Coulter remarked that the first speaker was almost certainly “not a physics major.”

Coulter once again attempted to begin speaking, but a final protestor began shouting. With now more than twenty minutes of sustained disruption, Coulter ended the event. As she was whisked out of the auditorium, she rather loudly remarked: “I’m so proud of my alma mater.”

The morning following the event, the response began. Joel Malina, Vice President for University Relations, released a statement saying he was “deeply disappointed that attendees at a campus event rudely and repeatedly disrupted” the speech. The following Tuesday, at a meeting of the University Assembly (UA), President Martha Pollack called the disruptions a “really stupid move” on account of Coulter’s waning relevance, nonetheless reiterating her disdain for the speaker. Further, Pollack assured the UA that the eight disruptors would be referred for conduct violations.

Yet Cornell’s administration was not the only institution that responded to the cancellation of Ann Coulter. The College Republicans at Cornell—the leading conservative voice on campus—published an op-ed in the Sun decrying what they called “the death of free speech at this university.”

Coulter herself also responded, publishing a statement on the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA)’s Twitter account. Coulter once again decried Cornell for no longer being one of the esteemed schools where “students have too much intellectual self-respect to scream and carry on.” Further, she demanded the expulsion of the disruptors lest future students attempt to similarly wield the heckler’s veto.

Since the disruptors will be referred to the Office of Student Conduct, Cornell will likely not reveal the details of the punishments given to the disruptors. Though Pollack’s statement to the University Assembly is likely the public end of this ordeal, it is indicative of at least a nominal commitment to free speech on campus.
Pollack noted in her convocation address earlier this year, “You’re going to encounter a lot of new ideas here. Some of them will fascinate and inspire you. Some you’re going to disagree with. And some, you might really hate. What I want you to do — and it isn’t always going to be easy — is listen to as many of them as you can.”

This article was originally published in the Cornell Review’s semesterly print edition.