NYT: Letter of the Month
To the Editor:
Columbia University’s treatment of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is appalling. It would have been understandable had Columbia simply condemned Mr. Ahmadinejad’s ideas or remarks in a debate or discussion forum.
However, not only did the university set the tone for the forum by launching ad hominem attacks, but the school then asserts that the forum was intended for the ideal of open discussion of ideas — a discussion that Columbia aborted in its infancy.
In doing so, Columbia has demonstrated again the temptation of Orientalism: for us to humiliate and caricature a feared Other, put it on open display, and then pat ourselves on the back for being enlightened enough to make the display case.
Columbia needs to either fully exclude or fully include Mr. Ahmadinejad in its discussions of him. Setting him up as a simple straw man to be knocked down does a disservice to academic discourse.
Michael Chen
Mount Prospect, Ill., Sept. 25, 2007
Remainder of letters here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/26/opinion/l26iran.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print
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