I’ve heard a lot of silly blather about how Ahmadinejad has a “right” to speak at Columbia University.
No.
This is the problem with positive “rights” such as right to health care, or food, or housing. It’s not possible to grant such a “right” without violating someone else’s.
If you have a “right” to groceries, then someone else has to pay for them, with taxes. If you have a right to housing, then someone else has to pony up to satisfy it. If you have a “right” to earn a minimum wage, and your labor isn’t worth that much, then the employer must subsidize you by paying more than your value on the market.
Everyone has a right to free speech in general, because in doing so, no one else is prevented from speaking.
But no one has a “right” to speak at Columbia University. There are limited opportunities to do so, and to grant it to one is to deprive another of the opportunity.
To speak at Columbia University is a privilege, and it is not one that should have been granted a murderous propagandistic fascist like Ahmedinejad. While Bollinger is to be commended for his harsh introductory comments, that doesn’t excuse his misjudgment in inviting the man to speak. That he was applauded there was a travesty, and a stain on the judgment of the Columbia students (if they were students) in attendance.
[Update in the afternoon]
And who is one of the idiots who thinks that Ahmadinejad has a “right to speak” at Columbia?