Why would Columbia University Invite a well known global terroriest, Ahmandinejad, to speak at their campus?

Question

But NOT invite the Minutemen, or the ROTC, which by the way, actually fights to give them the freedom of speech they so loudly declare they have, to their campus? It boggles the sane mind.

Answer 1

Columbia U. is a very very liberal anti-military, anti-Bush, anti-most anything that promotes conservative values school.  Now, however, "they" have established themselves as hypocrites when it comes to the First Amendment rights of a free society and who "they" allow to visit their campus... It's going to "bite them in the butt"....

Answer 2

So they can make a fool out of him like they did

Answer 3

My mind is sane.

I am not boggled!

Mahmoud spoke his mind, you can't control anyone's mind.

Answer 4

So the world can watch him make a complete fool of himself.For Example - 'there are no homosexuals in Iran'

I feel it was a good idea.We should do this with other crackpots too.

Answer 5

What do you defines as terrorist? If you go to Iraq they gonna tell you that American are terrorists for invading their country. If you as Iranian they gonna tell you that Americans are terrorist for supporting an terrorist groups in the 80's that attacked Iran. If you again ask Iraq citizens again, they would tell you that Americans are terrorist for supporting Saddam also in teh 80's.

Now, if you ask 90 %, maybe more, of people in the world, they would tell you that this government is abusive and an invader.

As the Iranian president said, Americans also kill people for committing crimes, they just do it in a different way, but at the end is killing. At the end is death.

So, who is the terrorist?

Answer 6

By inviting Ahmadinejad they demonstrated America's commitment to free speech, instead of just paying lip service to it.  

They also made it impossible for Ahmadinejad to gain any undeserved credibility from his trip.  

If he had been turned away, he would look like a reasonable diplomat who had been unfairly scorned.

Instead, he was forced to actually make his speech, in a public forum, and to be exposed to actual criticism.  Something he probably isn't used to.  

You should be thankful the universities aren't run by people as stupid as some of the folks you'll find in the minutemen, or ROTC.

Although that probably does have something to do with why you don't see those groups speaking at Columbia all the time.

Answer 7

Columbia bars the ROTC supposedly because the military's "don't ask don't tell" policy discriminates against homosexuals.  Yet they invite the President of a country that beheads g**s they catch.

Sounds like typical Liberal hypocrisy to me.  Why are you surprised?

Answer 8

THis way they can be holier than though and get an unbelievable amount of free pubilicity for thier school. I bet the marketing angle was almost never thought of..cough cough..

Answer 9

bush was busy that day

Answer 10

That homophobic, Holocaust denying, anti-Semite has absolutely no business speaking at an AMERICAN university.  it sickens me that spoiled, whoring, dope-smoking leftist college kids who are wasting their parents money would boo and attempt to assault a member of the Minutemen but cheer for a terrorist supporting dictator.  If I were to have acted that way in college, my dad would have stuck his foot so far up my butt it would have taken an entire team of surgeons to remove it.

Answer 11

Neither the Minutemen nor the ROTC detachment have ever done anything to preserve the rights of American Universities to freedom of speech.

President Ahmadinad was invited to increase publicity for Columbia, which believes that it, not NYU, should be the "IT" school in New York City. None of this is about academic freedom, it's about improving Columbia's stats for the USN&WR annual nonsense.

Answer 12

I think it's a publicity stunt on the part of the university. The questions that were asked of Ahmadinejad weren't questions that anyone would expect a dictator to answer. They were simply "look what I can say to the bad guy" questions.

The man's a crackpot, and everyone knows it. Even the students who cheered him know it (what the h**l was that all about?). It's akin to inviting Hitler to speak.

The only time anyone booed him, or showed any disapproval of his nonsensical rambling, was when he said they don't have homosexuals in Iran. I agree with booing him for that, but I wonder why no one showed any displeasure when he sidestepped everything else? The whole thing smacks of nonsense, to me.

So the answer would be, because Columbia University pulled off a major publicity stunt. That's all.