The alleged legal issue is interesting.
September 19, 2011, 9:00 pm
Guess Who’s Not Coming to Dinner
SNIP* But even if the dinner never takes place, it has already acquired enough of a media reality to be controversial. (In these days of that engine of derivatives called the Internet, no facts are needed.) On Sept. 14, one day after the Fox News story, the Shurat HaDin Israel Law Center sent Bollinger a letter asserting that because the U.S. State Department lists Iran as a state sponsor of terrorism, “hosting Ahmadinejad is not merely morally repulsive: it is illegal and will expose Columbia University and its officers to both criminal prosecution and civil Liability.” The letter then cites in support of that judgment Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project (2010), a Supreme Court decision that, it is said, “found that providing any assistance or support to terrorists is unlawful.”
That’s not quite right. What Holder holds is that it’s not just any assistance that is illegal; it’s “material support,” which includes, says the relevant statute, “any property, tangible or intangible, or service, including currency or monetary instruments or financial securities. Financial services, training, expert advice or assistance, safe houses, false documentation or identification, communications commitment, facilities, weapons, lethal substances, explosives, personnel … and transportation, except medical or religious materials.” The question then, is whether breaking bread and exchanging views with an official of a state that (we say) sponsors terrorism amounts to giving that state “material support.”
I put that question to Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, director of the Israel Law Center and author of the letter. She pointed out that the court held that even when the aid given to a “foreign terrorist organization” facilitates lawful activities, it is illegal because, freed from the necessity of paying for the lawful activity, the organization would have that much more money to spend on terrorism. I then asked exactly what aid would be provided by the rumored dinner. She replied that in addition to a banquet (her word), Ahmadinejad would be given a platform to express his opinions and the opportunity to advance his ideology, all the while operating under the legitimizing umbrella of a great American university.
But even if the dinner does occur and Ahmadinejad is given a platform and a legitimizing moment, such benefits would not rise to the level of the criteria listed in Holder. For if they did, if merely talking with Ahmadinejad or listening to him speak counted as “material support” that might be the basis of a criminal prosecution, there would be nothing left of the First Amendment, a point made forcefully by Justice Stephen Breyer in his dissent: “
ere the law to accept a ‘legitimating’ effect … as providing sufficient grounds for imposing … a ban, the First Amendment battle would be lost in untold instances where it should be won. Once one accepts this argument, there is no natural stopping place.” Even saying “hello” to Ahmadinejad (as opposed to turning your back on him or spitting in his face ) would constitute the proscribed material support. No court will stretch Holder that far.
So there is no legal case here and there may very well be no dinner; and there will certainly not be the kind of dinner that led the Israel Law Center to issue its warning. So why write about it, whatever “it” turns out to be? Because it raises questions I have been trying to answer while I work on a book about academic freedom. Why has the conflict between Israel and much of the Arab world become a third-rail topic in the academy? Why do so many of the incidents in which academic freedom is invoked by both sides center on that conflict? How can even a non-event, as this appears to be, release virulent energies and give rise to rants and counter-rants that threaten to go viral?
in full: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/19/guess-whos-not-coming-to-dinner/?hp
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