The epithet in my headline (which my mother wouldn’t let me say thus severely curtailing my freedom of speech) is not, surprisingly enough, about Ann Coulter and her recent Canadian adventure. On the contrary, it’s directed at the people who can’t stop carping and fussing about “freedom of speech” and how poor Ann, with her racist, homophobic, vitriol-laced material was “not allowed” to deliver her expected diatribe at the University of Ottawa. (As it turned out, it was she and her people who decided to cancel in Ottawa and her freedom of speech was on ostentious display the next day in Calgary — but we’ll leave it at that.)
But let’s be clear. This is not an issue of freedom of speech. Ann Coulter is perfectly free to stand on any street corner or in any park in Canada and say pretty much whatever she wants to say. Or she could hire a hall or start a newspaper. She could become a pamphleteer or a soapbox orator.
The real problem is that she was invited – and paid – to give a speech at a university which would validate the views of those in her audience who were looking for racist, homophobic, vitriol-laced material. Listening to her would give them permission to leave her event and go back out into the university community, feeling that their noxious views are acceptable. To give a different context to the question that’s been asked this week: Is this the role we want our universities to play? To sanction an event and a speaker that places many of their students in a threatening and dangerous position?
Ann Coulter’s so-called “ideas” should not be ignored, as some people suggest, and they should not be debated, which gives them legitimacy. They — and she — should be scorned and disdained and she should be held up to public scrutiny and called what she is: a vacuous bully, an ignorant boor, a nasty piece of work.
The suggestion that she should be tolerated — or ignored — reminds me of when American radio host Howard Stern was trying to gain a foothold in Canada. People who supported his being licenced by the CRTC kept saying, “If you don’t like him, just turn your radio off,” which, pardon me, is a really stupid thing to say as I’m very unlikely to have Howard Stern on my radio anyway.
But Howard is not playing to me; he’s playing to many of the same people that Ann Coulter plays to except Howard leans a little more heavily toward ferocious misogny and offers great aid and comfort — and advice — to men who abuse women. What good is it going to do if I turn my radio off? And likewise, what good will it do if I ignore Ann Coulter? I’m not their intended audience.
Let’s now hope she’s returned to the land of the free where her commentary is much more mainstream — although I’m told she’s going out of fashion even there — and get back to paying attention to those in our own country who may speak more quietly but who carry just as big a stick and whose aspirations are not so different from the mouthy Ms Coulter.
