Penn International Affairs Association President Akhilesh Goswami released a statement regarding former New York Times Middle East bureau chief Chris Hedges allegedly being uninvited from a conference run by the IAA that will take place in April.
Hedges said that he was uninvited following an article he wrote for Truthdig.com titled "ISIS – the New Israel" that compared Israel's founding fathers to ISIS.
In the statement released on Dec. 30, Goswami said that Hedges was on a short list of potential speakers but had never been formally invited to attend nor had the IAA had direct contact with Hedges. Futhermore, the IAA had not signed a contract with "an external agency."
In addition, the IAA apologized to Hedges for the confusion regarding his invitation. Goswami also said that Hedges was not chosen as a speaker for the conference not because of the article "but rather because [the IAA] felt that he was not the right speaker for the conference we are trying to hold."
Read the full statement from Goswami here and Hedges' article saying he was uninvited here.
