Liberal Fascists Not Having a Good Week

More reaction today to the leftist mob violence that shut down Ann Coulter's speaking event in Ottawa the other evening. The liberal fascists who believe in freedom of politically correct speech (as opposed to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms which proclaims free speech), are experiencing significant push back and some of it is from sources one would not have predicted.

First, we have this from an editorial in The National Post entitled: "Mob rule 1, free speech 0"

"Police and university officials say it was the event’s organizers who called it off. Event organizers say police warned them anti-Coulter demonstrators were “dangerous” and that, as a result, they could not guarantee her safety.

It matters little who is correct (both could be). The true cause is the same either way: angry left-wing students and protesters who cannot bear the idea of people they dislike having a say.

It is a pattern that has become sadly common on Canadian campuses. From the riot by hardliner Muslims and other radicals at Concordia University in Montreal in 2002 — which prevented Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from speaking — to last month’s cancellation by York University officials of a multi-faith event in support of Canadian values for fear of left-wing and Muslim violence to “shout downs” on several campuses of American speakers with ties to the Bush administration and the smashing of pro-life booths, Canadian universities have become hotbeds of intolerance led by leftist students, instructors and outside agitators.

The University of Ottawa should be particularly ashamed of its involvement in the Coulter incident, since it is entirely possible the mob there was emboldened to be even more vocal and physical by a condescending, quasi-threatening letter from the school’s provost, François Houle, cautioning the American author in advance to curb her tongue or face possible criminal prosecution for hate speech."

I agree entirely and have been saying the same thing, but this is The National Post, after all, and you expect some degree of common sense from this newspaper. But the next source of condemnation of the cowardly University of Ottawa and its politically correct aging hippie Provost comes from a source that just floors me.

Truly, pigs are flying today because the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) has actually protested the denial of free speech on campus for a (gasp!) conservative. You might want to make sure you are sitting down for this story entitled "University of Ottawa provost Francois Houle should apologize to American pundit Ann Coulter, says Canada's main university teachers' organization."

"We feel you [Houle] owe an apology to Ms. Coulter and, even more importantly, you owe the University of Ottawa community an assurance that the administration of the university strongly supports freedom of expression, academic freedom and views the role of the university as fostering and defending these values," officials with the Canadian Association of University Teachers said this week in a letter to Mr. Houle.
. . .

CAUT president Penni Stewart and executive director James Turk added to the denunciations in their letter, saying Mr. Houle's action also "raises serious questions about the University of Ottawa's respect for freedom of expression and academic freedom."

Since the Ms. Coulter cancellation, the University of Ottawa has been widely mocked in the Canadian and U.S. media as a bastion of small minds.

The CAUT, while claiming to "profoundly disagree" with Ms. Coulter's views, said the "disturbing questions and provocative challenges" she raises should be welcomed and subjected to "vigorous debate."

I sure hope Ms. Stewart and Mr. Turk still have a job after the aging hippies they work for read this. But maybe they have some support. The Acting Chair of the Department of Waterloo, Dr. Joseph A. Novak, weighs in with this letter to the editor:

"The students and the faculty of the University of Ottawa should respectively petition for the resignations of the provost and the president of the student federation. The actions of these two individuals with respect to Ann Coulter's visit to campus have been inimical to the environment of free expression that must characterize any campus. If the members of the university fail to act, then the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) should censure the University for violating the basic mandate of free inquiry that is proper to an institution of higher learning."

Surely the role of the university is to promote vigorous debate and to provide a model to the rest of society of civil exchange of views by people deeply opposed to and offended by one another. So if administrators cannot set the example, clearly they have to go.