Did you know Holocaust denial is "dangerous"? It’s a well known fact; everybody says so. But dangerous to whom and how? It’s stupid, certainly. But with all due respect, the never forget meme isn’t going to prevent the occurrence of atrocities in the future (one might note that we–the West generally, and perhaps in particular President William Jefferson Clinton–allowed the easily preventable genocidal slaughter of one million Tutsi in Rwanda to take place and to continue to take place in 1994; one might also note that at this very moment genocide is taking place in Sudan). Dangerous to the continued nonexistence of Palestine, I suppose. But I digress (and to start my post!).
I wanted to talk about the fracas at Columbia University. Man, is President Ahmadinejad a brilliant politician or what? And if he’s really as bad as Lee Bollinger’s rant claimed, and Bollinger really disapproves as much as his diatribe suggests, well, then Bollinger royally screwed up–he couldn’t have behaved in a way that was more politically beneficial to Ahmadinejad if Ahmadinejad had scripted it himself!
Plus, it was rude. Rude enough that I might be slightly embarrassed if I were a Columbia student. (My own alma mater is too busy bringing in professors like the Dalai Lama, and who could ever even consider being rude to him? Not that I’m saying Emory’s better than Columbia or anything. Which it is.)
I’m curious, though. For those of us who say Ahmadinejad deserved it, he’s "bad," exceptional circumstances, etc., I can’t help but ask: What if President Bush gave a speech at Columbia–would such an introductory diatribe be appropriate?
But okay, it was rude, so what? So nothing, says Geoff Stone: the bigger problem is that Lee Bollinger going off on President Ahmadinejad is at odds with the very role of the university.
[Columbia’s] invitation to this allegedly "cruel and petty dictator" was well within Columbia’s fundamental mission as a university, which is not to "endorse" particular ideas as "right" or "wrong," but to promote a robust and lively and sometimes controversial exchange of views in order to promote the ultimate goal of education.
* * * It was certainly appropriate for Bollinger to introduce President Ahmadinejad and to take that opportunity, as he did, to explain why it was appropriate for Columbia to invite him.
But then Bollinger went further, and directly attacked Mr. Ahmadinejad, asserting that he is a "petty and cruel dictator" who denies the Holocaust, threatens to destroy Israel, promotes terrorism, and violates human rights. * * * Columbia University as an institution cannot legitimately take positions on such issues. Because a university must remain neutral on all matters of public policy that do not directly affect the university itself, it should not have a faculty vote, for example, on whether to condemn the war in Iraq, on whether Mr. Bush is a good President, or on whether Mr. Ahmadinejad violates human rights.
Of course, individual faculty members, students, staff, and alumni may state their own positions on such matters with complete freedom. But the university itself should not take such positions. The responsibility of a university is to facilitate debate and disagreement, not to stifle it by declaring an "official" university position. Whenever a university arrogates to itself the authority to "declare" certain positions to be "true" or "false," it necessarily chills the freedom of its faculty and students to take contrary — officially disapproved — positions. This should be anathema to any university.
I really recommend reading the whole post, which also draws a comparison to the Senate’s treatment of the "General Betray Us" controversy.
Accidental Blogger 