Please Stay on My Lawn and Have Some Lemonade

Hering wrote - by far - the most sensible thing I have ever seen him write today:

The president of Columbia University in New York has thing or two to learn about manners. The main thing is that you don’t insult your guests.

...

If you’re revolted by somebody, you don’t have to invite him to your house. But once you invite him and he comes, even for a speech, he is owed the common courtesies that any guest has a right to expect. (hh)

Sadly, the middle of the editorial called inviting Ahmadinejad a case of "bad judgment." I disagree; while I think Hering is right that academic freedom does not compel one to invite someone like Ahmadinejad, I also think that inviting someone with such radically different views is a sign of the potential for very good discourse and the free exchange of ideas.

"See?" One can say. "We can invite this man, who we disagree with on very fundamental things, to our university and listen to him talk. We can consider his ideas, find them wanting, and reject them without insult or damage to anyone. Such is the nature of the free exchange of ideas."

Instead, Lee Bollinger, the Columbia President, apparently just let fly a string of ad hominem attacks on Ahmadinejad.

What's weird is that Hering seems to get the idea of academic freedom. And that I agree with Hering. I must be coming down with something...