Opinion

Free expression at Fordham

Should university presidents have free speech rights?

It’s a fair question, given the way the American academy has lately stomped all over free expression on behalf of the notion that the right not to be offended exists on a par with the First Amendment.

But, yes, they certainly should.

A case in point: Fordham University President Fr. Joseph McShane’s chastisement after joining a debate over whether commentator Ann Coulter should have been invited to speak on campus.

College Republicans invited her.

Controversy ensued.

McShane entered the debate, most definitely not on Coulter’s behalf.

The invitation was withdrawn — though whether that happened just before or just after McShane spoke out isn’t clear.

What is clear is that the Jesuit cleric never moved to bar Coulter. Doing that, he said “would be to do greater violence to the academy, and to the Jesuit tradition of fearless and robust engagement.”

Coulter, of course, cultivates controversy.

She has strong conservative views; we share many of them, unapologetically.

But she often expresses them in a way many find off-putting. (Calling President Obama “a retard,” as she did last month, hardly constitutes a convincing argument.)

McShane had a right to say so.

Whether the college Republicans allowed themselves to be cowed by that is between them and their collective conscience.

They had to have expected blow-back from a Coulter invitation.

They got it.

Case closed.