Princetonians: Iranian president wouldn't be welcome

As thousands of protestors marched through the streets surrounding Columbia's campus yesterday, Princeton community members were puzzled and angered by the event that brought Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the podium. Some were unsure whether Princeton would open its doors to such a controversial world leader.

"There are lots of things that are troubling about this particular invitation," acting Wilson School Dean Nolan McCarty said Monday night. "It's very difficult to handle free speech for someone who himself controls the regime that doesn't support those values. It's a very difficult case to make that he should be included in the realm of open ideas and debate that the University is founded on."

McCarty said that while universities have an obligation to pursue open debate, such circumstances involve tough decisions.

"It's very hard for me to say that we would never invite such a controversial person to campus," he said. "When deciding who's going to come to campus, these are all issues we take very seriously. It's hard to answer in the abstract whether we would ask a particular individual."

McCarty added that he thought Columbia President Lee Bollinger's opening remarks, which lambasted Ahmadinejad as a "petty and cruel dictator," were misguided.

"I think if we were to have invited such a controversial speaker, it would be inappropriate for myself as dean, or any other University administrator, to use the introduction to attack the speaker," he said. "We might ... respond to particular things in the speech and engage in debate. I thought the opening remarks went over the line in terms of simply making a direct attack on the speaker before the speaker had said anything."

President Tilghman could not be reached for comment.

Rabbi Julie Roth, who serves as executive director for the Center for Jewish Life (CJL), said the distinction between free speech and hate speech is the major question surrounding the invitation extended to Ahmadinejad.

"As a Jew and as a citizen of the world, I classify Ahmadinejad's statements that the state of Israel should be 'wiped off the map' and that the Holocaust is a 'fabricated legend' as hate speech," she said in an email. "At what point does someone forfeit his right to speak at an institution that espouses not only freedom of speech, but also respect and tolerance?"

CJL president Matt Kandel '09 said he was "baffled" by the Columbia administration's decision to invite Ahmadinejad.

"Either they are hopelessly naive or desperate for publicity," he said in an email, adding that he spent the summer of 2006 researching Ahmadinejad at a think tank in Israel.

"This man is a vile dictator whose regime brutally oppresses minorities, sponsors worldwide terrorism and commits daily bombings against U.S. forces in Iraq. To provide him a platform at a prestigious university does not show open-minded pursuit of truth or free inquiry; it foolishly gives credence to hateful words spoken by a truly evil man."

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Samantha Jaeger '10, who plans on concentrating in Near Eastern studies, said that she would support inviting controversial leaders like Ahmadinejad to campus.

"I wouldn't have any problem if he came and spoke at Princeton," she said. "Even though he's extremely controversial, I think everyone has a right to speak his or her mind, and we have lots to learn from people in other parts of the world who are so different from us."

Though Bollinger touted the event as a powerful example of free speech, Jacob Oppenheim '09, former treasurer for the Princeton Israel Public Affairs Committee, said that Ahmadinejad's speech doesn't even qualify as an expression of free speech.

"Free speech gives you the right to say anything, not to give someone a public platform to say it," he said. "By giving him a platform at Columbia, they are somewhat legitimatizing his point of view."

While Princeton has hosted controversial speeches from U.S. officials like Secretaries of State Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, Kandel argued there is no comparison.

"To even attempt comparing this event to speeches by Colin Powell or Condoleezza Rice is inconceivable," he said. "Ahmadinejad despises the Western values by which he was offered the chance to speak, and his words are better suited to a KKK convention than a scholarly body."

McCarty agreed.

"It would be a false relativism to even compare those cases with this one," he said. "This is a litany of issues about the speaker and his views. I can't think of anyone who's been invited to Princeton who compares [in] having views and actions so incompatible with the University."

McCarty also said Ahmadinejad's denial that gay people live in Iran was particularly inflammatory.

"I can't think of any cases of people making so inflammatory statements," he said. "I can't think of any high-profile speech [at Princeton] that was so provocative."