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She came, she saw and yes, she spoke. Whether you wanted her here or not, Ann Coulter, controversial conservative speaker and columnist, spoke before an opinionated, packed audience of roughly 950 people at Loyola's Mundelein Auditorium Thursday, March 23.
The speech was hard to hear and harder to follow, as clapping, booing, laughing and heckling overpowered Coulter's words. She retaliated, frequently stopping mid-sentence to address hecklers.
Coulter, who said her mission in speaking before audiences at college campuses is to "allow college students to hear the right-wing perspective in their four years at college," spoke on a range of topics in American politics.
She discussed the war in Iraq, national security, abortion and how Democrats, liberals, conservatives and Republicans discuss these issues. When referencing Senator John Kerry's (D-Mass.) opinion of how American G.I.'s are "terrorizing kids and children," she questioned his intelligence.
"They're terrorizing kids, and children too? Wait until PETA [People for the Ethical Treatment Animals] hears about this," Coulter said. "This is a clear violation of the Geneva Convention, to be terrorizing baby goats. If George Bush had said that, Michael Moore would have another movie by now."
Coulter went on to discuss moral issues.
"It would be so easy for the Democrats to say, 'We don't support gay marriage, we are not supporting partial-birth abortions, we support parental notification for 14-year olds having abortions,'" Coulter said. "'We're the Democratic party of your parents, we're the old Democratic party.' But they couldn't do it."
Coulter's far right-wing perspective has sparked controversy, as demonstrated through the volume of protest exhibited throughout her speech.
"I was upset I couldn't hear more of [her speech]," freshman Kathleen O'Pry, secretary of Loyola College Republicans, said. "Had there not been so much controversy because of her personality when speaking to a crowd, I would have been able to hear more."
While Coulter attempted to get through her speech amidst the noise of the crowd, she combated her protestors, using what they said to supplement her rhetoric.
When the crowd booed her comments on the Democratic message, she replied, "Well, that's what the American people think of their message."
At one point, Coulter asked the "Republican, heterosexual males" to "take [the protestors] out." Roughly a dozen College Republicans rose from their seats to heed her advice, only to be stopped by security officers who advised them to return to their seats.
"I think it was wrong for Coulter to attempt to incite what seemed to me was violence," Senior Sean Murphy, vice president of the College Republicans, said. "I don't feel it was her place to call on students to kick out members of the student body. There were people assigned to do that."
Before Coulter even came on the stage, Jack McLean, director of student leadership in the division of student affairs, outlined guidelines for audience behavior.
While he was met with laughter and cheering, McLean clarified that in order to uphold the mission of the university, "anyone displaying disruptive behavior including, but not limited to, heckling, shouting, throwing objects and obstructing others' views may be escorted from the premises and may face judicial action."
To enforce this, Loyola hired twice the number of security through the Chicago Police Department that is normally allocated to a speech for the same size audience.
"We hired 20 off-duty Chicago police officers," Jane Neufeld, dean of students, said. "My focus was not on her, [but on] the demonstration beforehand - to ensure that it was done in an orderly fashion to get their point across."
Junior Sarah Marie Coogan, vice president of Loyola Anti-War Network, who helped organize the silent protest and rally against Coulter, did not believe the security and the administration were prepared for what took place.
"Security was being aggressive," Coogan said. "It didn't seem there was any protocol for how to handle the situation."
Junior Sukaina Hussain, campus liaison for Muslim Student Association, described the situation that took place between the protestors and the security officers as "extreme."
"It was uncalled for," Hussain said. "People were pushed, bumped into. It was unjust. The administration overlooked that students were not given their rights in that way."
O'Pry, who worked with Loyola administration in orchestrating the event, believes that security measures could have been more organized.
"For the police officers, that is a scary situation with so many people and so few of them," O'Pry said. "At an event that would have protestors, there were not enough to keep everybody safe and take measure of control."
Junior Ieashia McKenzie, a self-proclaimed Democrat, came becuase she believes in everyone's right to free speech.
"I do not agree with what [Coulter] stands for," McKenzie said. "That is exactly why I came. As a black female, of course I don't agree with everything she says ... but I wanted to hear what she had to say so I can be an educated liberal."
Coogan said she does not condone the heckling that took place.
"We explicitly discouraged violence and yelling," Coogan said. "I can understand where those people were coming from, but I do not condone their behavior."
Hussain said that because silent protesters were asked to sit down or leave, there was no positive outlet for them to release their emotion or their beliefs through action.
"It doesn't justify the reaction from the protestors," Hussain said. "But it made the event a more conducive environment for shouting as an outlet for their feelings against [her]."
Coulter said the protest reinforced her feelings of liberals.
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