NEW YORK
Columbia University President Lee Bollinger, heavily criticized for allowing Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak at the school, on Monday was enthusiastically applauded for his tough remarks to the Iranian leader.
“I am only a professor, who is also a university president, and today I feel all the weight of the modern civilized world yearning to express the revulsion at what you stand for,” Bollinger said to Ahmadinejad. “I only wish I could do better.”
Bollinger and the school had been attacked for days by politicians who said it was wrong to give the Iranian leader a platform and by Jewish leaders offended by Ahmadinejad’s denial of the Holocaust.
On Monday, page-long ads appeared in newspapers lambasting the school’s decision. Some state lawmakers said they would carefully examine any requests by the school for funding in the future, but they stopped short of trying to revoke promised funding.
But when Bollinger spoke Monday, he was met with sustained applause, and audience members said they were impressed with his forceful speech.
“I thought Bollinger’s introduction was good,” said Arash Nia, a graduate student at Columbia’s Teacher’s College. “Columbia’s reputation was under attack. By giving that speech he was saying, ‘We invited you, but we don’t agree with what you stand for.’ For Columbia, and the world’s views of Columbia, it was the perfect thing to say.”
