I met Lee Bollinger several years ago the night before the U.S. Supreme Court heard the affirmative action cases challenging the University of Michigan which Bollinger then headed. (Ultimately the concept of affirmative action and the law school plan was narrowly upheld, but the undergraduate plan which literally gave students points for being African American was struck down. The Supreme Court rulings lead to a state referendum on the subject, which affirmative action lost.)
The event was a reception for all the many lawyers who prepared a record number of amicus briefs supporting the concept of affirmative action and the law school's position (the position I advanced on behalf of many current and former Pennsylvania legislators)and a few who also supported the extra points for being African-American plan as well. Bollinger was warm, friendly, and appreciative for all the effort that had been put into backing his university. He also was full of obvious enjoyment at being at the center of a national controversy.
Bollinger's world intersected with mine again this year at a long Yom Kippur service last Saturday at the Philadelphia synagogue, Congregations of Shaare Shamayim (Gates of Heaven) of which my wife, daughter and I have long been members. Just before I was to become one of the many congregants participating in the service, by leading in a section of responsive reading, a spokeman for Zionist Organization of America announced a rally today in New York protesting the speech of Mahmoud Ahmadinejah at Columbia University. Rabbi Morton Yolkut expressed support of the rally.
Much of the American Jewish Community's organization structure has long understood that the concept of free speech has inherent limits, and that access to public attention is far from a constitutional right. The protests against the speech of the Iranian leader have followed protests against speeches by numerous other anti-Semites over many years. Many leaders of the Jewish community believe anti-Semitism is a loathsome disease that can best be dealt with by marginalizing it and quarantining it to the greatest possible. Indeed that strategy seems to have helped reduce anti-Semitism from a major current of American life before World War II to a comparatively minor thread of our public discourse today.
The strategy of marginalization operates against the ideal of free speech, even as pursuing it leads to much more speech pro and con about the disreputable person being attacked than would otherwise have occurred. As I went with my some of my fellow congregants on a Teen Learning Community tour of Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty the following day, I thought a bit about the clash of ideals these places and the Bollinger controversy symbolized.
Bollinger was obviously thinking about what to do as well. Assailed by legislators and city council members--both groups of which had some power over Columbia University's future--Bollinger was well-prepared today with a stinging detailed attack on the policies of Mahmoud Ahmadinejah, from Holocaust denial to nuclear weapon development, to threats against Israel and to defiance of the United Nations.
It was a rare attack introduction, and a well-delivered one, with Bollinger actively discouraging applause by reading right through it. Bollinger's strategy of making a widely unacceptable guest feel unwelcome is reminiscent of that of President Theodore Roosevelt, early in his career when he was Police Commissioner of New York. Roosevelt told Jewish leaders that the free speech rights of a noted anti-Semite would be protected by assigning an all-Jewish team of police to protect him. The speaker gave his speech without incident, and quickly left town.
Bollinger's peroration will likely be quoted for some time: "I am only a professor, who is often a university president, and today I feel all the weight of the modern civilized world yearning to express their revulsion of what you stand for. I only wish I could do better. Mr. President, you exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator."
I think Jewish organizations and Bollinger both succeeded in making clear what they stood for. Hopefully, Bollinger's wish that the spotlight of international attention will weaken Ahmadinejah in Iran will come true.
The Pennsylvania House of Representatives, unanimously with my support, has already voted to divest from its pension holdings the stock of companies doing business in Iran (and in Sudan also because of the tragedy of Darfur). Citizen sanctions can at times be as effective as diplomatic sanctions. This may be one of those times.