The Burkett Miller Distinguished Lecture Series to Host Ann Coulter

The  Burkett Miller Distinguished Lecture Series is hosting Ann Coulter with a response from UTC’s Dr. Michelle D. Deardorff at Roland Hayes Concert Hall on October 5 from 12:00-1:15 pm.  The event is free and is open to the public. Seating is limited to a first come, first served basis and attendees must obtain a free ticket from the office of the Probasco Chair.

Ann Coulter has published numerous books, including How to Talk to a Liberal: If You Must and Mugged: Demagoguery from the Seventies to Obama. Coulter is the legal correspondent for Human Events and has appeared on several TV shows including “Good Morning America” and “The O’Reilly Factor.” She received her J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School.

Coulter’s speech, “America Under Obama: How to Recover and Save Our Country” will explore topics of social issues, welfare, poverty, income inequality, and international respect for America since Barack Obama was elected president.

Dr. Michelle D. Deardorff, Professor of Political Science and department head of Political Science, Public Administration, and Nonprofit Management will join the discussion as commentator following Coulter’s speech. Deardorff joined the University in 2013 and was recently elected to the Council of American Political Science Association.  Her previous publications include Constitutional Law in Contemporary America and American Democracy, with Pregnancy and the American Worker in the works.

In her response, Deardorff plans to use Coulter’s speech as a platform to focus on how the public approaches politics today.

“I want to talk about how when we focus on policies, when we focus on personalities, when we focus on the drama of politics, we’re focusing on the temporal: here and now. And I think what we’re not doing is focusing on the fundamental intellectual cleavages within our society where we really disagree.” Deardorff continued, “Those disagreements have existed since the beginning of our republic, but we don’t talk about those anymore.”

Deardorff hopes this event will have the University and the community thinking about the underlying issues that cause polarization in politics, and what those issues are rooted in.

Deardorff explained, “If you agree with her [Coulter], it’s going to be great fun to agree with her; and if you disagree with her, you’re going to want to sit there and argue back with her. That’s how she makes her living, and that’s okay. I’ve dedicated my life to this, and there is so much more there. We could actually talk about these ideas as opposed to talk at each other or against each other. If people leave this thinking about the underlying assumptions of the policies she’s advocating for and of the policies she’s disagreeing with, and decide where they stand on those underlying issues, I’ll be thrilled.”

Organized by the Scott L. Probasco Jr. Chair of Free Enterprise, the Burkett Miller Distinguished Lecture Series brings nationally recognized names to the University campus for discussions on the Market Economy. According to their website, the lecture series encourages “civil intellectual discourse to challenge the ideas of all authors invited to speak at UTC, because it is only through such interchange that the best and most functional ideas rise to benefit society and those which fail the test are relegated to the dustbin of history.”

To request tickets, or for more information, please contact Sheri Carmichael in the office of the Probasco Chair at sherian-carmichael@utc.edu. Please include the number of tickets you are requesting along with the name of each attendee when emailing Carmichael with the subject titled “2015 Burkett Miller Lecture Ticket Request.”