If you've got yourself into a hole, stop digging. In response to my post pointing out that the misunderstanding of the principle of free speech was his, not mine, Sunny Hundal comes back with the statement that the issue isn't as simple as I see it. He says that...
...for Columbia university to decline an invitation to President Ahmadinijad amounts to academic self-censorship.This is a remarkable claim. Does Sunny believe that a university practises self-censorship by virtue of all its non-invitations? But these are too many to count. I took it as something he was bound to agree with when I said in that post of mine that a university isn't obliged, out of respect for free speech, to invite absolutely everybody. Does he not then agree with that? He thinks all universities must invite all potential speakers? It's an absurdity.
Perhaps he just thinks Columbia must invite spokespersons for views that don't get much of a hearing. All of them? Flat-Earthers, those who want a restoration of the Romanovs, people who think Milosevic was innocent, Vegetarians for the War, Jews for Real Table Tennis... and so forth? Sunny suggests we need to 'take into account distribution of power and access to media'. Even on that basis, no one owed Ahmadinejad an invitation, and therefore Columbia didn't owe him one. As I said in my original post, 'The man is the president of Iran, his views broadcast across the world whenever he opens his mouth.'