Hitting Columbia where it hurts
Maybe this is the only way to draw America's elite universities away from the unpatriotic left. The New York Sun reports this morning that the New York State Legislature is considering reducing state aid to Columbia due to the appearance of Iranian fuhrer Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on its campus.Hat Tip: Instapundit
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.This has been a long time coming. But watch all the lefties start yelling about 'academic freedom.' Funny that they didn't care about that when members of Columbia's Middle East Studies department were shutting down anyone who supported Israel.
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."
Mr. Silver faulted Columbia for "attempting to legitimize this individual," saying, "We have an obligation because of the U.N. to allow him to come to this country. It doesn't mean we have to make him welcome. We don't have to give him a forum."
The speaker said he was infuriated by comments made on Saturday by the acting dean of the School of International and Public Affairs, John Coatsworth, who said in a television interview that it would have been proper for Columbia to extend a speaking invitation to Hitler in 1939. Mr. Coatsworth's school is sponsoring the event.
"What makes it more outrageous is the fact that some dean yesterday said he would have invited Adolf Hitler. It's totally outrageous. This is not a matter of academic freedom. This is a matter of legitimizing people, one who was the perpetrator of the Holocaust and one who denies its existence," Mr. Silver said.
"He's clearly responsible for the deaths of Americans both in Iraq and elsewhere. And he remains as much a threat to the world as anybody today. I don't understand what this dean and Columbia are thinking," Mr. Silver said.
...
Albany awards Columbia millions of dollars a year in student financial aid and also provides funding for smaller-scale capital projects. Last year, Albany awarded the school $10 million for nanotechnology center and $12 million for a cancer center in Washington Heights.
Columbia uses the state Dormitory Authority to borrow money at low interest rates. Mr. Silver could use his influence over the authority to weed out Columbia bonding projects before they are submitted for approval.
The school is also seeking approval from city lawmakers for its plan to expand into a 17-acre swath of land in West Harlem. Albany also has the power to use eminent domain to facilitate Columbia's expansion.
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 5:32 PM
2 Comments:
"Funny that they didn't care about that when members of Columbia's Middle East Studies department were shutting down anyone who supported Israel."
Nor did they care when, for another example, Benjamin Netanyahu was prevented from speaking by Islamofascist protesters and their Useful Fool enablers at another university.
This is an excellent example of the hypocrisy and intolerance of the fascist neo-left in the entire West. The "diversity" that's tolerated is the superficial: one can be white, black, Asian, hetero, gay, whatever - AS LONG AS he/she thinks "correctly", without any deviation from the secular theology of fascist Neo-Liberalism.
Those people reflecting real diversity, intellectual diversity, are not tolerated, period. They are viewed and treated as an enemy.
When erudite people, such as Mr. Netanyahu, Prof. Dershowitz, et. al. attempt to present their views in public academic forums, they are subjected to ad hominem attacks.
That itself is telling. If these Neo-Liberal fascists could construct logical arguments to counter what Mr. Netanyahu or Prof. Dershowitz were to say, they'd do so. Not having a logical refutation, or being too intellectually lazy to attempt to construct one, they lazily resort to ad hominem attacks on the messenger.
(Tangential but very related thought: It's amazing how much the West's academic world has intellectually and morally degenerated in the last few decades, since the Neo-Liberal left captured the bulk of the academic world! Can we imagine most of this garbage happening in major Western universities in the 1950's?!)
Reduce the state aid? Cut it off entirely!
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