What was Columbia University Thinking????

How on earth could they invite Ahmainejad to speak???

Barred by police from visiting Ground Zero, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may find more of a welcome at Columbia University, where he has been cleared to speak on Monday at the school's annual World Leaders Forum despite outrage expressed by New York area Jewish leaders.

"Opportunities to hear, challenge, and learn from controversial speakers of different views are central to the education and training of students for citizenship in a shrinking and dangerous world," the dean of the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), John Coatsworth, said in a statement. Ahmadinejad will open a series of lectures and events about Iran.

Bollinger is scheduled to introduce Ahmadinejad to an audience that will be made up exclusively of Columbia students, faculty and a few invited guests.

In a statement released Wednesday, Bollinger said it is a "critical" premise of freedom of speech "that we do not honor the dishonorable when we open the public forum to their voices."

I'm all for free speech. But why give this genocidal nut a platform???