It was a beautiful morning at 116th Street and Broadway when I arrived at Columbia University’s campus just before 8 a.m. yesterday, but a storm was already brewing.
Two news vans were parked at the main entrance, and a security guard denied access to campus to anyone without a Columbia ID.
A dozen speakers, united by the Columbia Coalition, an ad hoc group dedicated to providing a platform from which students could speak regarding the visit of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, spoke to thousands of students on Low Plaza.
Of the dozen, only one had anything to say.
Representatives from the Student Governing Board preached free speech. An Iranian Jew voiced her fear of the fear about which Franklin D. Roosevelt had warned. A student from an Israel advocacy group said that the Iranian President was not welcome, but added he had “never been prouder to be a student at Columbia.”
The Hillel rabbi condemned Holocaust denial, but also insisted, “I’ve never been prouder to be a Columbia alumnus than today.” The College Democrats insisted they “stand by the university’s decision.”
Just after noon, a voice of dissent finally rang out across campus. Shouting at the audience, a student cried that he was ashamed to be a Columbia student. He added that challenging Ahmadinejad by reading questions that could not be followed up from note cards, as planned, was ludicrous — and not in the nature of “open dialogue.”
Even before 12:30 p.m., another brigade of people promoting free speech and non-violence took the stage, echoing each others’ words.
Now, I’m all for free speech and non-violence, but what happened at Columbia yesterday was a travesty.
At 1:45 p.m., Dean John Coatsworth introduced the main event, insisting that students would “have an opportunity to directly engage” with Iran’s president. Well, writing a question on a note card and passing it by two censors before it’s read to Ahmadinejad doesn’t seem very direct.
Sure, Coatswoth tried to prompt forward answers from Ahmadinejad, once. He failed. Ahmadinejad was questioned on issues including Holocaust denial, threats to Israel and developing nuclear weapons, and each time, he smoothly evaded the question.
Only once did he slip.
“In Iran, there are no homosexuals,” came the voice of the translator. The campus burst out laughing.
But even as the hundreds of students inside the auditorium and thousands watching the simulcast from the South Lawn heard this bigotry, Ahmadinejad continued to drivel on about how great things are for Iranian women.
At 3:30 p.m., the Columbia Coalition speakers started talking again. They still opposed war. I still oppose war, too. But I also still oppose providing platforms for terrorists, and all the proof I need to substantiate my belief walked away from the South Lawn that afternoon: thousands of Columbia students, firmly believing that they had just been enlightened.
When a prestigious university invites a hate monger to address its students, the hate monger wins. I cannot imagine that Dean Coatsworth and President Bollinger thought they were planting seeds of terrorism support in the minds of their students yesterday, but when students applaud a violent despot, that’s what happens.
Did they really expect Ahmadinejad to not spew hate across the South Lawn? Did they think they were going to catch him off-guard and find out where his nuclear weapons development headquarters are? Did they expect he was going to tell them that Hitler didn’t murder 6 million Jews?
To invite a person like Ahmadinejad to campus is characteristic of either naivete or anti-Semitism. I would never accuse the leaders of a school like Columbia of being anti-Semitic, but I also have a hard time believing that the leaders of such a prestigious school are so naive.
I preface my conclusion with a quote from William Lloyd Garrison’s first issue of The Liberator, then a radical abolitionist paper, published in 1831: “I am aware that many object to the severity of my language: but is there not cause for severity? I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject, I do not wish to think, or speak, or write, with moderation.”
We, as academics, cannot provide platforms from which terrorists can speak. This kind of ill-advised promotion of free speech is insensitive to the freedoms these terrorists deny their own countrymen.
Regardless of our religious and political views, when it comes to standing up for human rights against terrorist regimes, we must take a united stand. Terrorist indoctrination has no place on America’s campuses. When we listen to what they preach to us, on our soil, and ignore what they preach to their own people, on their own soil, we promote ignorance and tolerance of murder and bigotry.