College students recently shouted down conservative speakers at Cornell, Penn State and the University of New Mexico, which free-speech advocates warn is a harbinger of a growing “heckler veto” that will further cancel conservative voices at America’s institutions of higher learning.
The nonpartisan Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) said that when Cornell students shut down a Wednesday night talk by conservative pundit Ann Coulter, it advanced a disturbing trend.
“We condemn those students’ actions. Shouting down speakers and disrupting scheduled events is not free speech or peaceful protest — it’s an impermissible ‘heckler’s veto,’” FIRE said in the statement.