Recent reactions to controversial campus speakers

By Ethel C. Fenig

US News and World Report has published a selected recent history of controversial campus speakers, complete with campus wide and audience reaction.

And to no one's great surprise liberal and leftist students, not interested in hearing about or learning about others' ideas, silenced many of the more conservative speakers more often than the reverse. So much for the yakety yak about in freedom of speech, the university as a place of diverse views, blah, blah, blah. A sample:

Sept. 24, 2007
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speaks at Columbia University while hundreds of students protest around the campus. Among his comments: "In Iran, we don't have homosexuals, like in your country."

Sept. 14, 2007
The University of California-Davis rescinds its invitation to former Harvard President Lawrence Summers ....

Nov. 30, 2006
A fire alarm is pulled twice, students are assaulted, and protesters boo during a speech by Rep. Tom Tancredo, an outspoken opponent of illegal immigration, at the Michigan State University College of Law.

Oct. 4, 2006
Angry students storm the stage, overturn tables, and unfurl a banner in Arabic and English reading "No one is illegal" at a lecture by Jim Gilchrist, founder of the Minuteman Project border patrol group, at Columbia University.

Sept. 10, 2006
As former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami arrives for a speech at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, he is met by approximately 200 protesters angrily asking him to stand up for human rights. Khatami is blamed for failing to stop government crackdowns on student activists in Tehran.

April 27, 2006
President Hu Jintao of China speaks at Yale University as hundreds of protesters gather to criticize China's human-rights record.

Dec. 7, 2005
Conservative columnist Ann Coulter cuts short her speech at the University of Connecticut after being drowned out by jeers.