Legislatures May Act on Columbia

[rodeodance]

Source: ny Sun




Legislatures May Act on Columbia
Silver Warns of Impact on State Aid

By JACOB GERSHMAN
Staff Reporter of the Sun
September 24, 2007

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

As the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, prepares to address Columbia University today amid a storm of student protest, state and city lawmakers say they are considering withholding public funds from the school to protest its decision to invite the leader to campus.

In an interview with The New York Sun, the speaker of the Assembly, Sheldon Silver, said lawmakers, outraged over Columbia's insistence on allowing the Iranian president to speak at its World Leaders Forum, would consider reducing capital aid and other financial assistance to the school.

Lawmakers warned about other consequences for Columbia and its president, Lee Bollinger, who has resisted campus and public pressure to cancel Mr. Ahmadinejad's appearance today, arguing that Columbia's commitment to scholarship requires the school to directly confront offensive ideas.

"There are issues that Columbia may have before us that obviously this cavalier attitude would be something that people would recall," Mr. Silver said. "Obviously, there's some degree of capital support that has been provided to Columbia in the past. These are things people might take a different view of … knowing that this is that kind of an institution."

Read more: http://www.nysun.com/article/63232

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Is it only a matter of time before the US Repug Congress wants an amendment to condemm Columbia????

[patrioticintellect]

1. Chavez should come and speak right after him

[Demeter]

2. There's One in Every Legislature; More than one in Some!

1st Amendment, anyone? Shall we bombard the GOP with copies of the Constitution along with the New Testament, so they don't keep embarrassing themselves like this?

I'm no fan of Lee Bollinger, he did Michigan a disservice. But really!

[northzax]

3. what does this have to do with the First Amendment?

they aren't passing a law stopping Columbia from having the speakers of choice, they are saying that the State does not need to support institutions. Freedom of speech doesn't mean the Government has to pay for speech.

[Demeter]

7. The Government Isn't Paying for This Speech--It's Punishing the College

for doing its job. No state funds will be used for this, you can be certain.

[northzax]

16. saying "no state funds will be used" is disingenuous

since it is likely that the State helped, in some way, finance the construction of the building it ie being held in.

anyway, the state has no obligation to finance Columbia in any way, shape or form.

[Name removed]

19. Deleted message

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[Name removed]

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[billyoc]

21. King George of England built all of the buildings.

It's like 300 years old, I'm just sayin'.

[northzax]

22. they haven't built anything in 300 years?

impressive, most impressive.

[Name removed]

4. Deleted message

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[Demit]

5. What on earth are they so afraid of? Does any report ever make them say?

What is the danger of listening to someone speak? What do they think will happen? Doesn't it occur to any reporters to ask this reasonable question? I really want to know.

[rodeodance]

9. its the transendentalism Terrorism we get pounded into us day after day from the RW/media

[rodeodance]

10. Gennaro, urged university donors to withhold their dollars from the institution,

..........

"Bollinger made a big mistake, and there should be consequences for him for making that decision," the chairman of the New York City Council's Finance Committee, David Weprin, said in an interview. "We should look at everything involving Columbia, whether it be capital projects, city and state, or other related things that we do in the city for them," he said.

Mr. Weprin was one of several elected officials who joined Jewish leaders, Columbia students, and alumni yesterday at a demonstration at the Morningside Heights campus to protest Mr. Ahmadinejad's talk.

"It's not going to go away just because this episode ends. Columbia University has to know … that they will be penalized," an assemblyman of Brooklyn, Dov Hikind, who also attended the rally, said. The lawmaker said Mr. Ahmadinejad should be arrested when he sets foot on campus.

Speaking at the rally, a New York City Council member, James Gennaro, urged university donors to withhold their dollars from the institution, while Rep. Anthony Weiner, a potential mayoral candidate in 2009, said Columbia's reputation was taking a "brutal beating."

[rodeodance]

13. lawmaker said Mr. Ahmadinejad should be arrested when he sets foot on campus.

[0rganism]

18. threaten Columbia for a single administrator's choice? nutty stuff

If this event can all be laid at Bollinger's feet, the trustees should be able to fire him if they deem it necessary.

The rest of the official hissy fit is very embarrassing to the NYC officials, even if they don't know it yet. C'mon, threatening Columbia's funding for inviting a speaker they dislike? That's pathetic and petty, screams of overreaction. Best thing they could've done is let the campus reaction speak for them -- hell, show some solidarity, go and protest Ahmedinejad with the student body, he'll be back in Iran soon enough. It'd be healthy for this leader to see open dissent without fear of reprisal.

But nooooo... gotta go out of our way to make Americans look like a bunch of stupid hypocrites at every opportunity.

[John Kerry VonErich]

27. It's getting worse there

Duncun Hunter said he would introduce legistlation to defund Columbia 100%. That means everything, because of this.

[0rganism]

29. then Rep. Hunter is disgracing this nation

Somehow, it pleases his puppet masters to ensure that we're loathed worldwide.

[0rganism]

17. He might "sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids", doncha know?

"It's incredibly obvious, isn't it? A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual. Certainly without any choice. That's the way your hard-core Commie works."
(Gen. Jack D. Ripper in Dr. Strangelove)

[sinkingfeeling]

6. Don't you wonder whatever happened to the 'home of the free' and the US Bill of Rights?

[cstanleytech]

8. But is that even legal for them to do

after all the constitution bars the government and by that it means all government from limiting peoples speech and thats what in essence they are attempting to do.
I don't care for the guy myself but if he is here legally then in my opinion he should have the same rights and protections as any until he is convicted of breaking one of our laws.

[NYVet]

11. Yes it is legal for the government to do this.

There is a difference between the government passing a law that you can not say something and the government passing a law stating that it will not give funding to an institution.

There are other streams of cash besides the public stream.

[karlrschneider]

14. Yes, but funding only institutions that adhere only to one political viewpoint is clear coercion

and is tantamount to de-facto censorship.

[NYVet]

26. Again, where does the law say that they have to take public money?

There are a few schools that have refused to take state or federal funds and are not going belly up.

[John Kerry VonErich]

28. But the quality is very poor

Especially in the medical front. Which is desperately needed in all colleges who offer medical degrees.

[rodeodance]

12. Columbia distributed 600 tickets to the talk,

Columbia officials say the Iranian leader will be escorted onto campus through the gate at 114th Street, which leads directly to Lerner Hall. He is scheduled to depart immediately after the event. Campus security, which is coordinating with local and federal authorities, is planning for more than 10,000 protesters to congregate outside the university's gates.

Columbia distributed 600 tickets to the talk, where Mr. Ahmadinejad will field questions from Mr. Bollinger as well as faculty and students. The event is to be broadcast on televisions and lounges across campus.

Mr. Bollinger said in a statement that he would question the Iranian president on human rights issues, as well as his position that Israel should be "wiped off the map" and that the Holocaust did not occur

[kirby]

15. Disgusting how so many in our country...

have lost the concept of freedom of speech, talking to your adversaries, free thought exchanges, etc.

Some of the close minded quotes from both lawmakers and even students dismay me.

[harun]

23. It is dizzying how quickly the sheeple are willing to do away with free

speech.

[CRH]

20. A lot of people very up set about a man, albeit an adversary speaking his thoughts, ...

I wonder what these same people would think of the research funding for warfare that is ubiquitous in our universities. What would the regents of the University of California say about the Lawrence Livermore Lab out in California, or what could be said of some of the applied science at MIT that keeps our military the most efficient killing machine in the history of humankind?

I guess this adversary's spoken thoughts, are more repugnant or perhaps scary.

[Trillo]

25. The ultimate "Personal Attack"?

Is a prohibition against a 'particular person' speaking the ultimate personal attack?

[Feron]

30. The whole point of college is to learn

and that means being exposed to viewpoints that you may or may not disagree with or even viewpoints you never even knew existed.

I attended speeches and read books in college by people that I disagreed with, but if I had never heard or read these things then how could I possibly form an educated opinion on the subject?!

Fuck the media and politicians. I am perfectly able to make up my own mind. I'm tired of them trying to think for me.

And there is certainly no harm in allowing a nation's president to give a speech and participate in a question and answer session. That's what free speech is about: Presenting an idea ,especially one that is unpopular, and being forced to defend it. I severely doubt Ahmadinejad changed any minds. If anything people are laughing at him for his comment about there being no gays in Iran.

What's sad is that Iran's president can participate in a forum without a preselected loyalty oath-bound audience of supporters and our own president is too chickenshit to do the same. Do you honestly think that Bush's handlers would have let him speak if Bollinger had given GW the same introduction?!

Anyhow the way you defeat prejudice is by putting a spotlight on these clowns and let them hang themselves on their own words trying to defend the indefensible. You aren't going to defeat prejudice by suppressing hate and pretending it doesn't exist. Just as you aren't going to create a democracy by bombing the shit out of a country.

Of course if you are an anti-intellectual, then concepts such as critical thinking are meaningless. Just parrot your daily GOP talking points and do your best marionette routine to the outrage of the day.

[CRK7376]

31. I'm thrilled Columbia

allowed the Iranian President to speak at one of our nation's finest universities. I loathe what the man has to say and find him inflammatory, but it's good to see the snake in the grass, hear what he as to say, debate him....I'm also pleased that he was not allowed to visit "Ground Zero". That to me was just a publicity stunt that would have been used to thumb the Iranian's nose at the US....bring pain to the families of those lost there 6 years ago.....