CHEYENNE, Wyo. — A year after 1960s leftist radical-turned-academic Bill Ayers ignited a firestorm of protest when he was invited to speak at the University of Wyoming, campus conservatives will bring in a controversial speaker of their own.

Best-selling author and conservative commentator Ann Coulter will speak at UW's 1,800-seat Arts and Sciences auditorium on March 31, said Caitlin Wallace, a UW law student and former UW College Republicans president who's organizing the event.

A self-described polemicist who frequently targets liberals in her books, syndicated newspaper column and on television, Coulter's pull-no-punches political commentary has won her applause from the right and scorn from the left.

No specific time has yet been set for the event, Wallace said. While admission will be free, she said, it's not clear yet whether tickets will be printed or if the event will be open to the public.

Her visit will come a year to the day after UW's Social Justice Research Center, citing threats of violence, withdrew an invitation for Ayers to deliver a lecture on education theory at UW. Ayers, a University of Illinois-Chicago education professor, co-founded the domestic terrorist group the Weather Underground, which bombed the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon and other government buildings in the early 1970s.