Ahmadinejad at Columbia
Missed yesterday due to computer malfunction.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad flew into New York City Saturday. He had come to the United States to speak before the UN General Assembly’s opening session this week. Under agreement with the UN, the United States as the host country for the UN headquarters cannot refuse to issue a visa to heads of state or other officials who come to the UN to speak. However, the State Department can and does impose a maximum travel radius on representatives of countries deemed unfriendly. Moreover, within the allowed radius, police departments may refuse requests, on the basis of security concerns, to go to specific destinations.
On Monday morning – September 24 – The New York Daily News front page was taken up with a picture of President Ahmadinejad and three words, all in capitol letters: EVIL HAS LANDED. The objection so voiced in print was part of the wide-spread protest against a speaking engagement at Columbia University by the Iranian president.
The invitation tendered by Columbia was freely extended and freely accepted, with no preconditions or restrictions. Despite some vociferous objections to allowing an individual who denies the Holocaust happened and has said that Israel should disappear from the map, the venue was most appropriate. To quote the great 19th century Roman Catholic prelate-scholar, John Henry Cardinal Newman, a university is a “School of Universal Learning… [implying] the assemblage of strangers from all parts in one spot….Accordingly, in its simple and rudimental form, it is a school of knowledge of every kind, consisting of teachers and learners from every quarter…. [A] University seems to be in its essence, a place for the communication and circulation of thought, by means of personal intercourse, through a wide extent of country” (The Idea of a University).
Of course, if “communication and circulation of thought” justifies giving Ahmadinejad a forum, the question comes as to whether there is any limitations on free speech in a university setting. Constitutionally, the Supreme Court has carved out some limits on general First Amendment rights, but the Court, as far as I am aware, has not directed such limits to universities.
Nonetheless, I suggest that there is at least one limit: courtesy to a guest, especially when the guest has been invited, in part, because his views are known to be contrary to those of the institutions. It is this limit that Columbia’s president, Lee Bollinger, violated in his rather extended remarks delivered before President Ahmadinejad said a word.
Protesting that he was but a university professor who happened also to be a university president, Bollinger started by reminding the audience that to listen to someone in no way implies acceptance or an endorsement of what is said – which includes both Columbia’s guest and those demonstrating against his presence on the university campus. Bollinger also urged his listeners to never retreat when confronted with ideas that one detests but to take them on.
All that was fair game and needed to be said. Bollinger then presented a list of grievances and accusations against internal policies and practices of the Iranian state as well as the foreign policies of the Islamic Republic. This too, was within bounds, particularly since Bollinger started by reminding Ahmadinejad that his country had arrested, imprisoned, and only recently released some Iranian-American academics visiting Iran, including members of Columbia’s faculty. (At least one academic is still under house arrest in Iran.) But then President Bollinger veered into a personal attack, calling Ahmadinejad “a petty and cruel dictator.”
President Bollinger is perfectly free to hold that opinion and to express it – which he did directly to the Iranian president. Yet, the verbal assault on the visitor seemed extremely crude and, factually, arguably not true. Granted that all candidates for political office in Iran are subject to a vetting process, Iranians seem to feel that they have real choices when they participate in general elections for president, parliament, and “local” government.
Ahmadinejad’s reaction was to chide Bollinger for, in effect, being rude. Bollinger, in my view, accomplished nothing by delivering his verbal assault before Ahmadinejad spoke other than confirm for Iranians that, even in its universities, America is an intolerant society.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad flew into New York City Saturday. He had come to the United States to speak before the UN General Assembly’s opening session this week. Under agreement with the UN, the United States as the host country for the UN headquarters cannot refuse to issue a visa to heads of state or other officials who come to the UN to speak. However, the State Department can and does impose a maximum travel radius on representatives of countries deemed unfriendly. Moreover, within the allowed radius, police departments may refuse requests, on the basis of security concerns, to go to specific destinations.
On Monday morning – September 24 – The New York Daily News front page was taken up with a picture of President Ahmadinejad and three words, all in capitol letters: EVIL HAS LANDED. The objection so voiced in print was part of the wide-spread protest against a speaking engagement at Columbia University by the Iranian president.
The invitation tendered by Columbia was freely extended and freely accepted, with no preconditions or restrictions. Despite some vociferous objections to allowing an individual who denies the Holocaust happened and has said that Israel should disappear from the map, the venue was most appropriate. To quote the great 19th century Roman Catholic prelate-scholar, John Henry Cardinal Newman, a university is a “School of Universal Learning… [implying] the assemblage of strangers from all parts in one spot….Accordingly, in its simple and rudimental form, it is a school of knowledge of every kind, consisting of teachers and learners from every quarter…. [A] University seems to be in its essence, a place for the communication and circulation of thought, by means of personal intercourse, through a wide extent of country” (The Idea of a University).
Of course, if “communication and circulation of thought” justifies giving Ahmadinejad a forum, the question comes as to whether there is any limitations on free speech in a university setting. Constitutionally, the Supreme Court has carved out some limits on general First Amendment rights, but the Court, as far as I am aware, has not directed such limits to universities.
Nonetheless, I suggest that there is at least one limit: courtesy to a guest, especially when the guest has been invited, in part, because his views are known to be contrary to those of the institutions. It is this limit that Columbia’s president, Lee Bollinger, violated in his rather extended remarks delivered before President Ahmadinejad said a word.
Protesting that he was but a university professor who happened also to be a university president, Bollinger started by reminding the audience that to listen to someone in no way implies acceptance or an endorsement of what is said – which includes both Columbia’s guest and those demonstrating against his presence on the university campus. Bollinger also urged his listeners to never retreat when confronted with ideas that one detests but to take them on.
All that was fair game and needed to be said. Bollinger then presented a list of grievances and accusations against internal policies and practices of the Iranian state as well as the foreign policies of the Islamic Republic. This too, was within bounds, particularly since Bollinger started by reminding Ahmadinejad that his country had arrested, imprisoned, and only recently released some Iranian-American academics visiting Iran, including members of Columbia’s faculty. (At least one academic is still under house arrest in Iran.) But then President Bollinger veered into a personal attack, calling Ahmadinejad “a petty and cruel dictator.”
President Bollinger is perfectly free to hold that opinion and to express it – which he did directly to the Iranian president. Yet, the verbal assault on the visitor seemed extremely crude and, factually, arguably not true. Granted that all candidates for political office in Iran are subject to a vetting process, Iranians seem to feel that they have real choices when they participate in general elections for president, parliament, and “local” government.
Ahmadinejad’s reaction was to chide Bollinger for, in effect, being rude. Bollinger, in my view, accomplished nothing by delivering his verbal assault before Ahmadinejad spoke other than confirm for Iranians that, even in its universities, America is an intolerant society.
posted by Dan Smith at 8:39 AM
4 Comments:
I agree about Bollinger's speech, although I had to get it second hand because I wasn't there. Ahmadinejad did actually win an election (however flawed) and by the accounts I have read is under a lot of pressure at home—from voters, not from the Ayatollahs—because of his poor management of the economy and other issues. Describing him as a "petty dictator" seems very unfair to the Iranian public, which clearly is judging their President on the merits of his work and might throw him out at the next election.
One doesn't have to agree with Ahmadinejad's policies—I certainly don't—to recognize that both Bollinger's attack and the hysteria that attended Ahmadinejad's coming were inappropriate. In the long run, the U.S. and Iran have to work things out. Incidents like this one don't facilitate this process.
The best postings are the ones we agree with.
I made the same observations as you did. There was no need to call him names.
My colleagues lamented that this is the state of universities today. I concurred.
Col Smith-
I agree strongly with your assessment. Bollinger made a rude and petty fool of himself, and further damaged Americans' reputations, and I am disgusted. What kind of University president is he? I would be very ashamed to be a student there with such an intolerant, rude leader. Even if he held those opinions of Ahmedinejad, his position as University president should have kept him from being such an inhospitable host.
Another problem with this pointy language is that it can be applied to so many other contemporary leaders, it becomes sad/comedic, useless outside of art.
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