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?
We understand that the event 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.
Sincerely,
Joan S. Birman
Professor Emeritus of Mathematics
Barry A. Farber, Ph.D.
Professor; Director of Clinical Training
Clinical Psychology Program
Teachers College
Jonathan Gross
Professor of Computer Science
Jill S. Shapiro
Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology
Ann P. Bartel
A. Barton Hepburn Professor of Economics
Columbia Business School
Marc S. Arkovitz, MD
Assistant Professor of Surgery
Freya R. Schnabel, MD
Vivian Milstein Associate Professor of Clinical Surgery
Clifford Stein
Professor, SEAS
Ethel S. Siris, MD
Madeline C. Stabile Professor of Clinical Medicine
Jay Rothschild,DDS
Assistant Professor
School of Dental Medicine
Assaf Zeevi
Gantcher Associate Professor of Business
Kenneth B. Eisenthal
Mark Hyman Professor of Chemistry
Richard M. Gewanter MD
Assistant Professor
Department of Radiation Oncology
Neil W. Schluger, M.D.
Chief, Division of Pulmonary, Allergy, and Critical Care Medicine
Associate Professor of Medicine and Public Health
Michael E. Goldberg, MD
David Mahoney Professor of Brain and Behavior in the Department of Neurology (in Psychiatry and in the Center for Neurobiology and Behavior)
Clarice J. Kestenbaum, MD
Professor of Clinical Psychiatry
Oded Koenigsberg
Assistant Professor
Business School
Richard A. Friedman, PhD
Associate Research Scientist
Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center
Oncoinformatics Core
Peter B. Milburn, MD
Clinical Assistant Professor of Dermatology
Judah Weinberger, M.D., Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Medicine
Thomas D. Zweifel, PhD
Adjunct Assistant Professor, SIPA
Charles W. Calomiris
Henry Kaufman Professor of Financial Institutions in the Faculty of Business
Arthur M. Magun, M.D.
Clinical Professor of Medicine
Ran Kivetz, Ph.D.
Professor of Business
Etah S. Kurland, MD
Assistant Professor of Clinical Medicine
Caryn J. Block
Associate Professor
Program in Social-Organizational Psychology
Teachers College, Columbia University
Mark B. Stoopler, M.D.
Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine
Marco Zaider, MD
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
Ralph L. Holloway
Professor of Anthropology
Howard Liss, MD
Assistant Clinical Professor of Rehabilitation Medicine
Sherri Sheinfeld Gorin, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Teachers College
Owen Lewis, MD
Clinical Professor of Psychiatry
Howard A. Shuman, Ph.D.
Professor of Microbiology
Bertie Bregman, MD
Assistant Clinical Professor
Center for Family Medicine
Rachel F. Bregman, MD
Assistant Clinical Professor
Center for Family Medicine
Kenneth Altman, MD
Ari L. Goldman
Professor of Journalism
Joshua D. Lipsitz, PhD
Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology
Department of Psychiatry
Judith S. Jacobson, DrPH, MBA
Associate Professor of Clinical Epidemiology
Vice President, Scholars for Peace in the Middle East
Edward S. Beck, Ed.D. CCMHC, NCC, LPC
Susquehanna Institute
President, Scholars for Peace in the Middle East
Ruth Lichtenberg-Contreras, PhD
Secretary, Scholars for Peace in the Middle East
G.S. Don Morris Ph.D.
Wingate Institute – IL, California Polytechnic Institute-Pomona, USA
Board member, Scholars for Peace in the Middle East
Stanley Dubinsky Ph.D.
University of South Carolina, USA
Board member, Scholars for Peace in the Middle East
Rev. India E. Garnett, M.Div
United Church of Christ, PA
Treasurer, Scholars for Peace in the Middle East
John R. Cohn, MD
Thomas Jefferson University
Board member, Scholars for Peace in the Middle East
Phyllis Chesler
City University of New York Staten Island
Professor Emerita, USA
Board member, Scholars for Peace in the Middle East
Donna Robinson Divine, PhD
Morningstar Professor of Government
Smith College
Board member, Scholars for Peace in the Middle East