Jesuitical 14: Fordham, Coulter and Singer

Part 14 of my ongoing survey of the follies of many modern day Jesuits.  Fordham President Joseph McShane, SJ, knows who his real enemy is.  Today Fordham is hosting the well known proponent of euthanasia and abortion Peter Singer at a conference charmingly entitled:  “Conference with Peter Singer: Christians and Other Animals: Moving the Conversation Forward.”  Singer is fine according to McShane, but he bitterly criticized the College Republicans recently at Fordham for sponsoring a speech by Ann Coulter.  Robert Shibley, at Professor William Jacobson’s magnicent blog College Insurrection, gives us the juicy details:

Fordham University is in a bit of a bind.

After loudly proclaiming his “disgust” with the “hate speech” of conservative pundit Ann Coulter in an email to all students, in the process slamming the Fordham College Republicans—his own students—as immature bigots who lack character, Fordham President Joseph McShane, S.J., is now faced with defending his administration’s invitation to philosopher and infanticide advocate Peter Singer to participate in a panel on “animal ethics.”

This puts Fordham in a tough spot.

Father McShane could have allowed the marketplace of ideas to function on its campus without engaging in an electronic temper tantrum. (To his credit, he did not ban Coulter from campus, although the College Republicans clearly saw which way the wind was blowing and canceled the event themselves—here’s one student’s reaction to that.) But he didn’t, and now Fordham is stuck trying to justify McShane’s statement.

In response to an email from a College Insurrection reader provided to us, Bob Howe, Senior Director of Communications at Fordham, penned the following response, attempting to explain why having Peter Singer advocating his positions on campus is totally different from having Ann Coulter advocate her positions: Continue reading →