Columbia University President Lee Bollinger

by **Sonny** on Fri Oct 12, 2007 8:25 am

Invites a man that has repeatedly called for the destruction of Israel (& bashes America) to make a public speech at his Ivy League school.. but he won't allow anti-semitic bathroom graffiti on campus.

Should this be considered irony or lunacy? Did Ahmadinejad use the bathroom in question? Inquiring minds want to know.
http://www.wnbc.com/news/14322201/detail.html

**Sponsor**

by **Zeuslax** on Fri Oct 12, 2007 10:53 am

Invites a man that has repeatedly called for the destruction of Israel (& bashes America) to make a public speech at his Ivy League school.. but he won't allow anti-semitic bathroom graffiti on campus.

Huh? I know your not being serious. That is a little bit of a stretch to draw comparisons.

by **Steno** on Fri Oct 12, 2007 11:08 am

Yeah, I am having trouble connecting the two as well. Do you have any proof of this? Where is your research? Do you have more links to websites (not Wiki) to support your rather cutting accusation?

by **Sonny** on Fri Oct 12, 2007 11:16 am

You guys want proof that Ahmadinejad wants to push Israel into the sea?

I just think it's hypocritical on his part that's all.

by **StrykerFSU** on Fri Oct 12, 2007 11:39 am

A better question is why Bollinger allowed the Iranian President to speak at Columbia citing free speech when he allowed a presentation being given by representatives of the Minuteman Project to be disrupted by students who physically threatened the speakers. Don't the Minutemen have the right to free speech as well? No punishments were handed down to the students involved despite video of the incident.

Apparently, in the eyes of Bollinger and Columbia, speaking about stopping illegal immigration is not as important as giving the President of Iran a pulpit from which to spew his propoganda.

Good times in higher education!

by **Steno** on Fri Oct 12, 2007 12:10 pm

Academia's lack of touch with real world is what makes it academia.

The crimes committed in the bathroom stalls were crimes of hate because they assaulted religious beliefs. The crimes against the minuteman were assaults on politics.

Some have argued that religion and politics are the same thing; both are belief systems that one chooses. I myself, to a certain degree, feel this way. However, let it be noted that protesting someone's belief is much different than proposing (or creating an homage to) mass genocide.

I say the students should rise UP! We live too much in a time of moral passivitiy to let what's been going on keep going on. Good thing I graduate next year to join the front ranks of other ne'er do wells.

Remember Edward Abbey: "If opposition is not enough, we must resist. And if resistance is not enough, then subvert"

Or Thoreau: "I say, break the law"

What we need to remember is that there is a difference between protest and hate. Stryker, it appears as though you have equated the two, and in that case I disagree.

An ex-girlfriend of mine rushed the stage at Columbia during the speech, and she claims all the threats are propoganda. I side with her.

On another note, the fact that the President of Iran was allowed to speak was an act of bravery on the side of Columbia; I am glad we all get to hear what everyone has to say, regardless of the orientation of their moral compasses. On occasion, I even listen to Republicans!

by **StrykerFSU** on Fri Oct 12, 2007 12:27 pm

I wholeheartedly disagree. Whatever you may think of the Minuteman Project's message, are they not entitled to express it? Is it not protected under our freedom of speech? All I am saying is that if Ahmadhsdjflkhaud is allowed to speak at Columbia, why not a group of Americans who are not calling for the destruction of a nation? Why does freedom of speech only apply to the Iranian? The students at Columbia are certainly allowed to protest but they should not have been allowed to effectively end the speech through threats of violence. Is it just mob rule up there in NYC? A group disagrees with a speaker so they have the right to rush the stage and threaten the safety of the speaker? That doesn't say much for the free exchange of ideas.

I view it as unbelievably hypocritical and the behavior of the Columbia students reminds me of a 4 year old stomping up and down and screaming until they get their way, nothing noble about that.

I am glad we all get to hear what everyone has to say, regardless of the orientation of their moral compasses.

Unless they are opposing illegal immigration.

by **Adam Gamradt** on Fri Oct 12, 2007 12:31 pm

Here's an interesting blog about the Minuteman incident. I'm not defending the actions of the "protesters" I do think the Minutemen are a fringe group, given their alliance with white supremacists.

http://www.bwog.net/index.php?page=post ... 0a260f6837

I don't think the president of the University "allowed" this to happen. Here is his reaction to the disruption.

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/president/co ... speech.htm

Your claim that no one was punished also isn't entirely true. In fact I believe the students were censured, and some of the non-students were banned from campus.

It's also pretty safe to assume that allowing the President of Iran to embarrass himself publicly does further the discussion, and certainly didn't allow him to further his propaganda. It's not against the law to say stupid things, nor to bash America.

This isn't high school, you're not an ostrich, and you can't simply stick your head in the sand and hope your enemies go away.

The assertion made in the parent post is absurd and illogical. Bathroom graffiti is not equal to a public debate.

by **StrykerFSU** on Fri Oct 12, 2007 12:45 pm

I don't want to belabor this but after reading Bollinger's statement I can only think of him as incompetent now. The University obviously did not have the security on hand to control what was clearly going to be a volatile situation.

by **Adam Gamradt** on Fri Oct 12, 2007 12:55 pm

Here's an editorial from today's Star Tribune.

http://www.startribune.com/562/story/1479297.html

Our local school St. Thomas just decided to honor their invitation to Desmond Tutu, which had previously been canceled due to pressure from internal and external forces. That Bishop Tutu is such a radical.

Cliff, I'm a bit confused, but that's how I usually spend most of my day.

This quote sums it up for me, seems like the President of Columbia is doing his job.

"This is not complicated: Students and faculty have rights to invite speakers to the campus. Others have rights to hear them. Those who wish to protest have rights to do so. No one, however, shall have the right or the power to use the cover of protest to silence speakers. This is a sacrosanct and inviolable principle.

It is unacceptable to seek to deprive another person of his or her right of expression through actions such as taking a stage and interrupting the speech."

by **StrykerFSU** on Fri Oct 12, 2007 1:14 pm

No one, however, shall have the right or the power to use the cover of protest to silence speakers.

Isn't this precisely what happened at the Minuteman speech? He is merely condemning the protesters after the fact when his job was to ensure that the presentation would not be interrupted in the first place. He is just very lucky that no one was seriously injured.

Regardless of his statements after the fact, Bollinger allowed an atmosphere on campus where protesters were able to silence a speaker and thus, violated the Minuteman group's freedom of speech...the very tenet by which he justifies giving the Holocaust denier a venue. I view that as hypocritical. Whether or not he should be allowed to speak is not my point, just that there is a lack of consistency in Bollinger's actions and logic.

by **Sonny** on Fri Oct 12, 2007 1:21 pm

StrykerFSU wrote:I view that as hypocritical. Whether or not he should be allowed to speak is not my point, just that there is a lack of consistency in Bollinger's actions and logic.

bingo!

by **Adam Gamradt** on Fri Oct 12, 2007 1:36 pm

The presumption is that he willingly and intentionally allowed the protesters to disrupt the Minutemen, something you have not proven. There was security on site.

The most logically inconsistent part of this thread is the original post.

I still fail to see how cleaning graffiti has anything to do with who is allowed to speak on campus.

by **Sonny** on Fri Oct 12, 2007 2:01 pm

You don't think it's a tiny bit inconsistent to denounce bathroom grafitti. But allow a Islamic NutCase who has advocated pushing Israel into the sea a major public platform to speak on US soil?

by **Adam Gamradt** on Fri Oct 12, 2007 3:22 pm

For the sake of argument, let us examine the logic.

Your claim requires bathroom graffiti to share similar, if not the same, legal space as a human giving a speech, even if he\she is a bit of a loon.

Bathroom graffiti is not protected speech.

Nor does bathroom graffiti further the public debate in a meaningful way, as Mr. Ahmadinejad's appearance did. That we are still discussing his appearance is further evidence of this fact. I digress.

If you claim that bathroom graffiti shares the same legal space as speech, then why does this website ban anonymous posters, while allowing (most of the time) rigorous debate about divisive topics between registered and identifiable posters?

Also, it's curious to note that the spell checks first guess at Ahmadinejad is Shadiness's.