Another conservative invading the safe space of academia.
Via Helena IR:
A controversial professor and columnist whose selection as the Jeff Cole Distinguished Lecturer drew objections from the University of Montana School of Journalism dean will speak on campus at the Dennison Theatre.
Mike Adams, a professor at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington, will give the 10th anniversary lecture that honors the late Wall Street Journal reporter Jeff Cole at an event scheduled from 6 to 8 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 13. His talk is called “The Death of Liberal Bias in Higher Education.”
Adams is an incendiary writer for Townhall.com who regularly jabs leftists and hypocritical stances, and his views earlier sparked a petition for his termination at UNC. He has targeted LGBT people, Muslims and feminists, and he has described transgender people as mentally ill.
He also won a First Amendment case in the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in a free speech lawsuit against UNC after being improperly denied a promotion.
The last nine years, the UM School of Journalism has sponsored the lecture. This year, for the first time in the tradition of the annual event, an objection was raised to the lecturer Maria Cole selected.
School of Journalism Dean Larry Abramson argued against the school’s sponsorship of Adams, saying the columnist didn’t have the stellar media credentials other school-sponsored speakers have held.
After her husband’s death, Maria Cole established the Jeff Cole Legacy Fund to support journalism and education, and she has given some $1.2 million to the Journalism School in the last 15 years. In response to Abramson’s rejection of Adams, Cole opted to plan the event on her own, and she had considered holding it off campus.
Monday, Cole said she was initially concerned about Adams’ safety on campus, but she since learned he didn’t share those concerns. She decided to bring a controversial speaker to Missoula because she believes the country needs to engage in civil discourse. Besides, she said, she wanted the 10th anniversary lecture to be different.
Cole had heard Adams tell KGVO he didn’t want to be “moved to the back of the bus,” but she wanted to be sure he felt safe if she were to book a venue on campus. She emailed him to ask if he would feel threatened.
“And he literally wrote back and said, ‘I’ve been in the lion’s den many times. This is not an issue,’ ” Cole said.
He told Cole he would be fine either way, and she said she would mull a decision. In the meantime, she said, a UM official reached out to her and told her Adams was not banned from campus and would have “a warm reception.”