At some point...

...there needs to be a distinction made between being provocative by bringing up awkward/divisive subjects and making you think about them...and being provocative by yelling really loud. Via Debate Link, I see this article by Inside Higher Ed about 'controversial' speakers at colleges and universities:

Since the 2004 election, the American Association of University Professors has been reviewing the issue of controversial political speakers and it has now published a proposed statement reiterating the importance of inviting such people to campuses — and rejecting the idea that speakers must be balanced, person by person, as invitations go out.

The new AAUP statement rejects two arguments commonly given for disinviting Moore last election cycle and some controversial figures generally: that they lack balance or that their presence on campus could endanger an institution’s tax-exempt status.

As a commenter there pointed out, in general colleges seem to take the easy way out. Instead of promoting debate and an open forum, they hire these people (for much more money) to pretty much spew, make jokes, and leave.

The problem that isn’t being addressed here is that provocateurs like Moore and Coulter are brought in as speakers in the first place. They command high fees to present recycled tedious, predictable polemical rants that lack intellectual depth and rigor. They substitute cleverness and wordplay for genuine argument, and they offer little or nothing that is new or imaginative.

The money would be better spent on bringing in genuine scholars and intellectuals (our college has recently hosted W.S. Merwin and Seamus Heaney, for instance), in which case the need for this sort of policy would vanish.

I'll be honest: 1) I enjoy political discussion, but when I was in college I probably wouldn't have gone to see W.S. Merwin speak, and 2) I enjoy Michael Moore's movies (for the most part, anyway). However, just because I enjoy his movies doesn't mean I'm going to go see him talk (can you tell I didn't pay to see many lectures in school?) or buy his books. To an extent, if he would just shut his mouth a bit, his movies would resonate more...meaning, people would be more likely to give his movies a chance and truly listen to what he's saying in them if they didn't already know they despised him going in because he called W the "Deserter in Chief" or whatever every chance he got.

Bottom line, as David says...

The reason that Ann Coulter and Michael Moore shouldn't be invited isn't because they are too controversial for our tender ears. It's because they are morons. I like having interesting speakers at Carleton, from all sides of the political divide (we had, among others, Jonah Goldberg and Derrick Bell this year). Frothing polemics are "interesting" only in the way a car wreck is.