The Deacon's Bench
Late last week, the College Republicans announced on Facebook that they would be having Ann Coulter as their fall speaker, and they created a Facebook for the event. Well, as Ann Coulter does draw a strong response from both sides, there were many angry responses directed at the College Republicans for inviting such a speaker. Perhaps the most notable response, though, came from the president of the University, Fr. Joseph McShane, in the form of an e-mail sent out to all of those with a Fordham e-mail address. The College Republicans then announced that they had already decided to cancel the event.
The entire e-mail was also posted on the Fordham University Facebook page and can be viewed on the university’s website. The controversy and the cancellation were covered by The Observer, the student paper at the Lincoln Center campus. The university’s website does not mention that there has been reporting from the Young America’s Foundation, FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights in Education), and The Daily Caller as well. Fox News even has covered the issue on “The Five.”
Now, Ann Coulter is certainly not without her fair share of controversy. And she has certainly come under fire from the pro-life community recently, as expressed by Kristen Walker Hatten here on Live Action News. Though nowhere in Fr. McShane’s e-mail or comments from angry students was there anything about her not being pro-life enough to speak at a Jesuit University, which Fordham is.
And now, this upcoming Friday, February 16, there is a speaker who most certainly is not pro-life enough to speak at Fordham University. That speaker? Peter Singer. Fr. McShane has not sent out any statement in an e-mail addressed to the entire school about having such a speaker. The president not only did that in the instance of Ann Coulter’s invite, but expressed his “disgust.” I am disgusted with Peter Singer, and I expect Fr. McShane to be as well. Yet there has been no such e-mail.
In case you are not aware, Peter Singer is an advocate for abortion, as a woman’s right and as a form of population control; bestiality; and euthanasia, and he has made the moral case for infanticide, particularly for disabled infants. Yet from the description of the event and of Peter Singer on “FORDHAM NOTES: A NEWSBLOG FROM FORDHAM UNIVERSITY’S NEWS AND MEDIA RELATIONS BUREAU,” you would not know this.
The event is titled “Panel: Christians and Other Animals” with the subtitle “Christians and Other Animals: Moving the Conversation Forward.” Peter Singer is listed as the top panelist, with his credentials listed as “Peter Singer, Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics, Princeton University.” There is also a brief one-sentence bio listed about him at the end: “Peter Singer—in addition to being the most influential philosopher alive today—was the intellectual heft behind the beginning of the animal rights movement in the 1970s.” Regardless of whether that bio was written by a person from Fordham, which it may very well have not been, by attaching it to a Fordham advertisement for a Fordham-held and sponsored event, it seems as if the university is standing by Peter Singer “being the most influential philosopher alive today,” and influential in not such a bad way.
Let’s see if the university president has anything to say about this. Stay tuned.
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