Jan 09, 2008 03:42 AM

Taking leave of their faculties

by Stefan Beck

When we last tuned in to the sad-making spectacle of Columbia University’s shameless faculty, it was to direct your attention to this letter, the authors and signatories of which condemn Columbia’s president, Lee Bollinger, for being rude to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during the Iranian president’s well-publicized and pointless visit to the school. Here’s the relevant passage, should you need a refresher:

3) The president’s address on the occasion of President Ahmadinejad’s visit has sullied the reputation of the University with its strident tone, and has abetted a climate in which incendiary speech prevails over open debate. The president’s introductory remarks were not only uncivil and bad pedagogy, they allied the University with the Bush administration’s war in Iraq, a position anathema to many in the University community.

You might think that adding your name to such a document is about as far as a U.S. citizen can fall in the service of a repressive, nuke-crazed dictator—short of espionage, I suppose—but you’d be wrong. According to several sources (here’s one), which I sincerely hope are incorrect,

[a]n academic delegation of Columbia University professors and deans of faculties plans to visit Tehran to officially apologize to Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad.

The delegation plans to express regret for the insulting remarks Columbia University President Lee Bollinger directed at Ahmadinejad on September 24 in his introductory speech, the Mehr News Agency correspondent in New York reported.

Since the incident, the deans and professors from the faculties of history, anthropology, Middle Eastern studies, philosophy, and Islamic studies have criticized Bollinger’s behavior toward Ahmadinejad.

Bollinger’s “behavior toward Ahamadinejad” was beyond doubt a last-ditch sop to those who pointed out—correctly and vocally—that the man should never have been invited to begin with. But in the grand scheme of international relations, why should anyone lose sleep over an anti-Semitic nut getting the dressing-down he so richly deserves? One wonders if conservative paranoia about the political bias of college professors could even invent a scenario that the faculty wouldn’t be more than happy to act out.