Release from President Bollinger’s Office
Columbia University President Lee C. Bollinger this afternoon released a
revised and updated statement in light of Dean Lisa Anderson’s decision
today not to go forward trying to schedule a last-minute event at the
School of International and Public Affairs with the President of Iran:
“Yesterday Dean Lisa Anderson told me she had invited the President of
Iran to speak at the University tomorrow, Friday.
“As of this morning, we were not able to ever establish a conversation
with the Iranian Embassy that would ensure to my satisfaction that the
specific arrangements of any such program would reflect the academic
values that are the hallmark of a University event such as our World
Leaders Forum.
“But as the Dean of Columbia’s School of International and Public
Affairs, Dean Anderson has the right and responsibility to invite
speakers whom she believes will add to the academic experience of our
students. My office conveyed to Dean Anderson’s that the University
would support SIPA if the school wanted to finalize and host such an
event tomorrow. She announced earlier today that the event will not
take place.
“I said last night as this story developed that I find President
Ahmadinejad’s stated beliefs to be repugnant, a view that I’m sure is
widely shared within our university community. I have no doubt,
however, that Columbia students and faculty would have used a truly open
exchange to challenge President Ahmadinejad sharply and are fully
capable of reaching their own independent conclusions about his claims.
“Let me also repeat from my earlier statement today my core belief that
the example of freedom we set here in the United States, and especially
at American universities, is the greatest long-term threat to the
current Iranian leadership and most powerful weapon against such
fundamentalist regimes. From what I understand, most Iranian students
would dearly love the kind of freedom American students have to live,
learn, and publicly challenge both their own government and foreign
leaders in forums like ours.
“Freedom to speak, pursue ideas, and even to hear and evaluate
viewpoints totally objectionable to our own is central to America’s
greatness. It is also an essential value of our universities and,
indeed, of civil society.
“We are not afraid of words from the likes of President Ahmadinejad. We
are in the business of finding facts and exposing darkness to light.
And I do not believe President Ahmadinejad’s patently false claims about
history, about the undeniable fact and horror of the Holocaust in the
murder of innocent millions, and his own government’s policies in the
world, will be seen as anything but absurd.
“Had President Ahmadinejad indeed come to SIPA on the eve of Rosh Ha
Shana, he would have achieved no propaganda victory for hard-line
Iranian policies on nuclear programs, or Israel’s fundamental right to
exist, or his own historically preposterous views. Instead, his
appearance would have exposed his testimony to the kind of cross
examination that we in our country and in our universities know is the
surest path to truth and the surest safeguard of freedom.”
Office of the President
Columbia University
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Letter from SPME to President Bollinger
Dear President Bollinger:
This morning we were astounded to learn from the Columbia Spectator that Dean Lisa Anderson of the School of International and Public Affairs had invited Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the World Leaders Forum tomorrow, the Eve of Rosh Hashana, as you noted in your press release. We gather that you had been equally astounded only hours earlier. However, surprise does
not explain why your statement, quoted in the New York Sun, indicated that only security concerns and lack of lead time might prevent him from speaking. As the President of this university and as a distinguished advocate of academic freedom, you might have been expected to come up
with more principled reasons.
Ahmadinejad, the head of state of Iran, has declared repeatedly, and as recently as this week, that another nation, Israel, must be wiped off the face of the earth. Iran distributes much of the weaponry killing American soldiers in Iraq; funds and supports Hizbullah, one of the State Department’s recognized terrorist organizations, in its attacks on Jews in Argentina and Americans in Lebanon; works to compromise the sovereignty of Lebanon, and, of course, sponsors any organization that is prepared to kill Israelis. In your press release, you said:
As the Dean of Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs, Dean Anderson has the right and responsibility to invite speakers whom she believes will add to the academic experience of our students…. Freedom to speak, pursue ideas, and even to hear and evaluate viewpoints totally objectionable to our own is central to America’s greatness. It is also an essential value of our
universities and, indeed, of our civil society.
Like you, we value academic freedom and freedom of speech, but neither academic freedom nor the First Amendment requires Columbia University to give a podium to anyone who wants it, let alone a Hitler wannabe who has actively suppressed academic freedom in his own country. Ahmadinejad has proposed purging liberal and secular faculty from all Iranian universities; some 40 professors at Tehran University were forced to retire last June. Scholars, students, and journalists in Iran have been imprisoned for their views. Does Dean Anderson seriously believe that
hearing the views of this Holocaust denier and inciter would “add to the academic experience of our students”?
Would Columbia, in 1939 or 1940, have extended an invitation to the Chancellor of Germany? Would it extend one today to the leaders of the Ku Klux Klan or Osama bin Laden?
As of a few minutes ago, we were unable to find any reference to Ahmadinejad as a speaker on the World Leaders Forum website, and we understand that the event has not been posted at SIPA. We therefore have reason to hope that his appearance has been canceled. However, the
outcry that the announcement of the event has caused gives you a special opportunity. By making a a strong public statement denouncing the invitation, you could assume a leadership role in taking the campuses back from those who are abusing academic freedom in order to destroy it.
We strongly urge you to take that opportunity.
To sign this document contact jsj4@columbia.edu before 9PM 9.21.06
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September 21, 2006 Edition > Section: New York > Printer-Friendly Version
Columbia To Welcome Ahmadinejad
BY JACOB GERSHMAN – Staff Reporter of the Sun
September 21, 2006
URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/40134
Columbia University has invited the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to give a speech tomorrow at the Morningside campus, Columbia’s president, Lee Bollinger, announced late last night.
Mr. Bollinger in a statement said he did not invite the president himself but learned yesterday that his university had extended the invitation to Mr. Ahmadinejad, who is in New York City for the U.N. General Assembly.
It’s not certain, however, that the president will attend a world leaders academic summit that is taking place at the school. Because of the short notice, Mr. Bollinger said he couldn’t be sure that high-level security arrangements would be put in place in time.
Columbia’s offer to the president, a Holocaust denier with nuclear ambitions who was labeled by Israel’s foreign minister yesterday as the greatest threat to the world’s values, is sure to re-ignite protest at a campus that was rocked by a controversy over its anti-Israel professors less than two years ago.
Columbia’s last-minute offer to Mr. Ahmadinejad was evidently made under secrecy and confusion. Last night, Columbia’s vice president for public affairs, Susan Brown, denied that the invitation had been extended, saying it was “rumors, rumors, rumors.” Mr. Bollinger released a statement about it just before midnight.
Although he said he strongly disagreed with Mr. Ahmadinejad’s views, Mr. Bollinger said he would not stop him from speaking at the university’s world leaders forum, which began this week and whose top-billed speakers had been the prime ministers of Croatia and Papua New Guinea.
“I happen to find many of President Ahmadinejad’s stated beliefs to be repugnant, a view that I’m sure is widely shared within our university community,” Mr. Bollinger said. “So whether or not all of the special arrangements needed for such a visit can be made in this unusually short period of time, I have no doubt that Columbia students and faculty would use an open exchange to challenge him sharply and are fully capable of reaching their own conclusions.”
The invitation comes a day after Mr. Ahmadinejad told the General Assembly that Israel’s creation was “a great tragedy with hardly a precedent in history” and that the Jewish nation “has been a constant source of threat and insecurity in the Middle East region, waging war and spilling blood and impeding the progress of regional countries, and has also been used by some powers as an instrument of division, coercion, and pressure on the people of the region.”
I am researching the details and will keep you posted. If any of you
have information on when and where Ahmadinejad will speak, are
interested in signing a letter to President Bollinger, and/or have
thoughts about what such a letter should say, please let me know.
Signed by 40 Columbia Faculty and 8 SPME Board Members
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