Iranian president speaks at Columbia

NEW YORK - Columbia University was a hotbed of conflict yesterday as free-speech pundits, politicos, national media, New Yorkers and Columbia students gathered to voice their divergent views on Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit to the Morningside Heights, N.Y., campus.

Columbia President Lee Bollinger invited Ahmadinejad to speak at the university as part of its School of International and Public Affairs' World Leaders Forum.

The president of Iran has been widely criticized for denying the Holocaust, calling for the destruction of Israel, violating nuclear warfare treaties, stifling free speech and violating human rights.

"Mr. President, you exhibit all of the signs of a petty and cruel dictator," Bollinger said in his introduction to Ahmadinejad's speech.

After denouncing those "insults," Ahmadinejad defended past statements where he has denied the Holocaust - "there has been more research on physics than the Holocaust, but we still research physics" - and wouldn't confirm or deny past statements about wiping Israel off the map.

He also championed Iran's right to "peaceful nuclear energy."

What he could not defend, he denied, insisting for example that "in Iran, we don't have homosexuals."

Ahmadinejad also questioned whether al Qaeda was responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks, asking, "Who was really involved and put it all together?"

Though Bollinger came under criticism for inviting the president in the first place, he issued multiple statements to the community in the days leading up to the event justifying the invitation while acknowledging the delicacy of the situation.

"This will bring us into contact with beliefs many, most or even all of us will find offensive and even odious," Bollinger wrote in an e-mail to the school yesterday morning before the speech.

About 2,000 to 3,000 students watched an outdoor televised version of the event because seating was limited.

Due to security concerns, all non-Columbia students were banned from entering the campus, causing swarms of protesters to spill onto Broadway outside the main gates.

"I think it is disgusting that Bollinger would invite Ahmadinejad here because of his human rights abuses and funding [of] terrorism," said Barnard College sophomore Sarah Ishal, a Persian Jew who has family in Tehran.

"If he wants to speak, that's fine, [but] not when Columbia is paying for his security," she said.

Todd Bookman, a student at the School of International and Public Affairs, held a sign that read, "Free speech for all, even douche bags."

"To deny free speech to anybody, you deny it to everybody," he said.

The reactions at Penn were marked by similar rifts.

"I think it's a travesty that Columbia gave somebody in favor of genocide a platform to speak," said College sophomore and College Republicans President Zac Byer. "This is the world's largest financier of terror that we're talking about."

Political Science department Chairman Avery Goldstein supported Bollinger's move, saying that, for him, "the key is that he's not simply going there to give a talk. He has to answer questions."

Interestingly, though, throughout his speech, Ahmadinejad stressed that he was, in fact, speaking "from an academic point of view."

"There's very little academic value to his being on campus," Wharton junior and Penn Democats President Clayton Robinson said.

Perhaps the most eloquent defense of free speech was given by four seventh-grade students from a nearby New York Public middle school.

"I don't think what he is doing is right at all, but we should at least listen to him," said Elizabeth Lorley, who came with her teacher to watch the event.

-Senior Staff Writer Samuel Dangremond contributed reporting to this article.

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