Ahmadinejad @ Columbia: Free Speech or Free Publicity?

Obviously one of the big stories at the moment is the speech of Iran's president at Columbia.
This is being framed as a freedom of speech issue - to censor or revoke the invitation to speak at Columbia would be limiting the freedom to hear all viewpoints, no matter how controversial.



Columbia is being hailed as a champion of free speech. This is missing the point, I feel, because Columbia in fact made two decisions by sponsoring this speech.

The first was to extend the invitation in the first place. The second was to keep the invitation open in the face of criticism and controversy. While the second should be respected. The first must be questioned.

The freedom of speech issue certainly was not the motive for inviting Ahmadinejad - it is the justification for the invitation. What I doubt is the real motive for extending the invitation in the first place. I can only see deliberate provocation in the spirit of self-promotion through public controversy.

I felt my suspicions confirmed when the first headline to emerge from the speech was that the Columbia President, Lee Bollinger, 'slammed' Ahmadinejad (so much for civil debate) in his speaker's introduction - is that more in the spirit of free speech or free publicity?


Free speech would be the issue only if Ahmadinejad had actively sought out Columbia, and the college had stood firm for his right to be heard. Instead, the college appears to have been looking to stoke the flames of controversy. The invitation originally came from the dean of Columbia's school of international and public affairs, and was originally to speak at the World Leaders Forum.

This is my question: why seek out this man to grant him a platform to spread his obviously absurd and hate-filled views? Yes, Columbia has been able to justify its decision to maintain the open invitation on the basis of free speech, but as the Dean of Columbia Law School states:

"Although we believe in free and open debate at Columbia and should never suppress points of view, we are also committed to academic standards. A high-quality academic discussion depends on intellectual honesty but, unfortunately, Mr. Ahmadinejad has proven himself, time and again, to be uninterested in whether his words are true."

Columbia should not be commended for its original decision to extend the invitation, which caused this whole saga in the first place. But its decision, whether for principled motives or not, to keep the invitation extended needs to be acknowledged as the right one.

See: Debate between Columbia President and Law Dean [WSJ Law Blog]