Posted by Eugene Volokh: Ahmadinejad Speech at Columbia: http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2007_09_23-2007_09_29.shtml#1190658547
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a bad and dangerous man, but it seems that Columbia was quite right to have him speak there as part of its [1]World Leaders Forum. Columbia students can benefit from hearing bad world leaders as well as good ones; I'm pretty confident that most of the students in the audience will be able to tell one from the other -- and if they're not, then the event offers a great opportunity for them to do so. If the event were some special honor for the person -- as endowed lectures, "[2]visiting public interest mentor" positions, graduation speeches, and the like often are -- I would take a different view: A university should not honor the dishonorable. But my sense is that the World Leaders Forum does not carry the university's endorsement of the speaker's moral character, only of his significance on the world stage (which Ahmadinejad regrettably has plenty of). Incidentally, the [3]blog reports about Ahmadinejad's talk -- which I read after I decided to post this -- reinforce my view on the subject. It looks like Columbia President Bollinger has forcefully expressed his disagreement with Ahmadinejad, thus reminding people that the invitation didn't constitute endorsement of Ahmadinejad's beliefs. This may be one of the I realize [4]my friend and coblogger David Bernstein might disagree with me on this, but experienced Volokh Conspiracy readers know that such amicable inter-blogger disagreements happen on occasion. References 1. http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-09-21-columbia_N.htm 2. http://www.volokh.com/2002_11_10_volokh_archive.html#85680369 3. http://www.columbiaspectator.com/ahmadinejad/ 4. http://www.volokh.com/posts/1158865472.shtml _______________________________________________ Volokh mailing list [email protected] http://lists.powerblogs.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/volokh
