Free speech is an important right we have as Americans, and as human beings. When Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad spoke on Monday at Columbia University, I hope he learned a few lessons about the value of free speech. I hope he takes those lessons to heart as he returns to a country where his government exercises complete control over the press.
Ahmadinejad has a right to his opinions and to express them, no matter how repugnant his words might be. He is within his rights to hold conferences to deny the Holocaust—and to claim, as he did on Monday, that Iran does not have any homosexuals. But no university is obliged to lend its stage to bigotry.
By allowing him to give an address on campus, Columbia is not protecting Ahmadinejad’s right to free speech. Rather, Columbia is granting the credibility of one of America’s most prestigious universities to one of the world’s most vile living dictators. By lending Ahmadinejad its platform, Columbia is making a statement that Ahmadinejad’s opinions are within the realm of acceptable academic discourse. Columbia is implying that a speech by Ahmadinejad deserves as much weight as any other political or professorial lecture, and considerably more fanfare.
Many respected universities would not allow a speech by a professor who denies the existence of any number of past horrors. The crusades, the Spanish inquisition, and slavery in America are all incontrovertible truths, and it would be the worst kind of academic dishonesty to claim otherwise in the service of a narrow political agenda.
By denying the Holocaust, Ahmadinejad makes a similarly inconceivable claim. Worse, he couples his assertion with intentionally inflammatory and bigoted rhetoric that is clearly out of place in an academic setting. Any scholar with similar beliefs would not be granted a prestigious speaking opportunity at Columbia University. Ahmadinejad’s considerable fame should not justify an otherwise untenable speech.
Universities should present divergent and radical opinions—viewpoints that may differ from the current political ideology. It is not a university’s place to censor academic opinions, limit debate or decide which views are acceptable for its students, faculty and affiliated organizations. But scholarship strives to be a rigorous discipline, and there are some ground rules. Free and open as they try to be, however, universities are not environments in which absolutely anything goes. Language that encourages racism, bigotry and hate speech has no place in academic discourse.
Ahmadinejad can say anything he wants, of course—that is free speech. But being able to speak at Columbia University—or at any university, for that matter—is a privilege, not a right. Just as Columbia should deny its platform to any professor who denies historical certainties and makes a career out of hate speech, so too should Columbia have denied it to a political leader who vocally champions such views. That is not a matter of free speech, or of scholarly freedom. It is a matter of basic academic decency.
