Columbia Trivia

This from the Wall Street Journal ($): "Oh, and by the way, [Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's] regime also executes homosexuals for the crime of being themselves. Maybe if Columbia University President Lee Bollinger were aware of the latter fact he would reconsider his invitation to the Iranian president to speak on his campus next Monday.

Mr. Bollinger, notoriously, voted in 2005 not to readmit an ROTC program to Columbia (absent from the university since 1969), ostensibly on the grounds of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy regarding gay service members. Never mind that other upper-tier schools, including Princeton, Dartmouth, Cornell and the University of Pennsylvania all have ROTC programs. Never mind, too, that in 2003 the Columbia student body voted in favor of readmission by a 2-1 margin. In Mr. Bollinger's view, 'the university has an obligation, deeply rooted in the core values of an academic institution and in First Amendment principles, to protect its students from improper discrimination and humiliation.'"

Maybe if the military had a "tell and hang'em high" policy against homosexuals, Columbia would welcome ROTC. More liberal hypocrisy. (No, hypocrisy...Mahmoud Ahmadinejad hates Bush, too! Birds of a feather; the enemy of my enemy is my friend and all that. - Ed.)

UPDATE: Related via David Bernstein at Volokh: "And, come to think of it, I can't resist the contrast between the reaction to Rumsfeld at Stanford and, judging from the stories in the Columbia Spectator, the almost complete quiescence, apart from some Jewish groups, at Columbia regarding the invitation to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad."