Free Republic

SNIPPET: "NEW HAVEN — A 38-year-old man arrested after police discovered a pipe bomb, shotguns, gas masks and other items inside his Mercedes late Tuesday was arrested earlier this year on bombmaking charges in East Haven. John Iannucci was held at New Haven police headquarters for most of the day on a host of weapons and explosives charges. The arrest could likely complicate the situation on his current court case. He is due to appear in court on Oct. 22 on the East Haven charges of illegal possession of explosives and illegal bomb manufacturing. He was free on $25,000 bail...

Shades of Harvard’s Larry Summers! Columbia’s President, Lee Bollinger, has just come under faculty-fire for having mistreated Iran’s President Ahmadinejad, and in so doing, having “sullied the reputation of the University with (his) strident tone.” Bollinger has also been castigated by seventy faculty members for having “allied the University with the Bush administration’s war in Iraq” and for taking “partisan political positions concerning the politics of the Middle East.” This is no parody. This is a seventy-gun opening salvo and the unmistakable sound of a bloody drumroll; the French Revolution has returned to Columbia’s campus. I did not think that...

Too bad Dr. Lee Bollinger, who has a law degree, forgot an essential cross-examination principle: Never ask a hostile witness a question you don't already know the answer to. If he'd remembered that bit of courtroom wisdom before he invited Iran's president to Columbia University, perhaps jihadists around the world wouldn't be laughing at America right now. Bollinger is the president of Columbia, which invited Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to a question-and-answer forum on campus this week. The showdown was supposed to expose the Iranian propagandist, but it turned out to be the biggest public relations disaster in the history of American...

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may have faced ridicule in the United States by suggesting there were no homosexuals in Iran, but he won praise at home on Wednesday for taking his country's case to "the Lion's Den." Generally, politicians and media in the Islamic Republic -- even some who have previously criticized the president -- described Ahmadinejad's visit to New York as a triumph and denounced the university president who called him "a petty and cruel dictator." But one pro-reform newspaper said that, although the president told his U.S. audience he respected academics, that was not always how it seemed at...

President Lee C. Bollinger of Columbia University and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran met Monday on a field of rhetorical battle at Columbia. Bollinger opened the proceedings, to which he had invited Ahmadinejad, by presenting a series of sharply-worded questions. Bollinger, normally a genial, soft spoken man who is always courteous and deferential to his guests, was in a totally different mode. His voice was hectoring and bullying. He included in his litany of questions provocative and insulting statements about his guest. Bollinger's change of style was, I believe, to blunt the enormous criticism that ensued following Columbia's invitation to...

COLUMBIA University Presi dent Lee Bollinger yester day made some cutting crit icisms while introducing Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - but that doesn't make the school's decision to offer a platform to the head of a violent terrorist state any less abject, squalid or shameless. "Abject, squalid, shameless" is how Winston Churchill described the resolution passed by Oxford University's prestigious Debating Union in 1933 - the year Adolf Hitler came to power - that "this House will under no circumstances fight for King and Country." And Columbia's event, like the 1933 Oxford resolution, sent (to quote Churchill again) a "very...

So, in the end, Monday the Iranian wild man Mahmoud Ahmadinejad got a dressing down from the man who had invited him -- in the name of free speech, you understand -- to speak at Columbia University. Likely, by time for the speech, Columbia President Lee Bollinger had no choice other than to perfume himself against the stench from a statesman who proposes to exterminate Israel, presides over one of the world's least free regimes and may, to boot, have a secret nuclear weapons program going. Bollinger had been getting unshirted hell from reasonable people displeased -- as why wouldn't...

Duncan Hunter, the Congressman from California, joined other Republican Presidential candidates over the weekend in condemning the upcoming address to Columbia University by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But Hunter went a step further by pledging that if the speech goes forth he will introduce legislation in Congress to cut off federal assistance from the University. All federal assistance. This would presumably include research and scientific grants for the sciences and medical school. "If the left-wingers of academia will not support our troops, they, in the very least, should not support our adversaries," Hunter said in a statement accompanying a warning...

In the 1930s, the Columbia administration participated in what could be described as the coddling of the Nazi regime. In 1933, Nazi ambassador Hans Luther gave a speech on campus in which, according to a 2006 article in Spectator by Rafeal Medoff, he focused on Hitler’s “peaceful intentions” in Europe. Columbia maintained student exchange programs with Nazi universities throughout the ’30s, while, in 1936, our university sent a representative to the 550th anniversary celebration of the University of Heidelberg, even though, writes Medoff, it had “already had been purged of Jewish faculty members, instituted a Nazi curriculum, and hosted a...

Editor's note: This piece by Matthew Continetti appeared in the October 14, 2002, issue of National Review. Lee Bollinger, the recently installed president of Columbia University, is used to praise. Newsweek labeled him an exemplar of a “new, visionary breed of college presidents.” In The New Yorker, Nicholas Lemann wrote that “if you were called upon to invent a perfect university president, you couldn’t do better” than Bollinger. And in an article entitled “A Renaissance Man at Columbia’s Helm,” the Christian Science Monitor cooed that beneath the college president’s “gentle voice and unassuming manner lies a powerful legal counterpuncher.” Why...

Some Columbia University students who disrupted a speech in October by Minuteman Project founder Jim Gilchrist with a wild protest could be expelled. The school's President Lee Bollinger says the students are being charged with breaking the school's code of conduct, and they will meet with a dean who will decide their fate. Bollinger also says protesters who do not attend Columbia are now banned from campus. Gilchrist was forced to cut his speech short.

CAMDEN, N.J. -- It's a choice no family wants to face. But one mother said Cooper University Hospital was trying to force them to turn off life-support machines that have kept her son alive. Matthew Bollinger was walking on the side of the street to a friend's house Wednesday night when he was struck by a car. "I think he deserves a chance, and I'm going to give it to him. I mean, they're going to try to do this without my permission. I'm his mother," said Karen Kennedy. The family said they know Bollinger's injuries are serious and his...

Predictably, as night follows day, the ad hoc faculty committee appointed by Columbia University President Lee Bollinger to examine the behavior of several Columbia faculty towards Israeli or pro-Israel students has concluded that little or nothing of concern occurred. Rather, given the opportunity to produce a report that is sure to receive widespread publicity, the faculty committee concluded that the more disturbing problem is found elsewhere - with pro-Israel students disrupting lectures on Middle Eastern studies, and some faculty members feeling that they were spied on. So the real problem at Columbia is not anti-Semitism, biased and untruthful teaching, or...

Columbia's Whitewash By Ryan Sager Published 04/07/2005 Inopportune comments by Harvard President Lawrence Summers back in January about possible innate differences between men and women were enough to set off a national firestorm that raged for weeks and is still smoldering today. So why is the bullying and carpet-sweeping being perpetrated by Columbia University President Lee Bollinger with regard to student complaints of intimidation in the classroom by anti-Israel professors being ignored? If Summers' remarks were unfortunate, Bollinger's conduct has been downright unethical -- and it has done far more lasting damage to the reputation of the institution he serves....

NEW YORK (AP) - Professors have a responsibility to resist "the temptation to use the podium as an ideological platform," Columbia University's president said, days before the anticipated release of a report investigating charges from Jewish students accusing pro-Palestinian professors intimidating them in classes. But Lee Bollinger added Wednesday that it was "preposterous to characterize Columbia as anti-Semitic or as having a hostile climate for Jewish students and faculty." Bollinger made his comments to the Association of the Bar of the City of New York. He did not comment on what the report, expected out next week, could say. Professors...

Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times Lee C. Bollinger, Columbia's president, said in a speech on Wednesday night that professors must not use the "podium as an ideological platform." Faced with complaints that Columbia University has tolerated anti-Semitism and intimidation in its Middle East studies classes, Columbia's president said last night that academic freedom has some limits when it comes to the classroom and the broader educational experience. "We should not elevate our autonomy as individual faculty members above every other value," the president, Lee C. Bollinger, said in a speech to the Association of the Bar of the...

Dec. 23, 2004 11:27 | Updated Dec. 29, 2004 21:54 Non-academic debate By URIEL HEILMAN NEW YORK Deena Shanker was a freshman at Columbia College when she first encountered what has now famously been portrayed as the Ivy League university's problem of rampant bias, hostility and vilification of pro-Israel students and viewpoints in courses on the Middle East. She was in a class called "Palestinian and Israeli Politics and Societies," taught by Prof. Joseph Massad, and in a discussion in the spring of 2002 on Israel's military incursions into Palestinian areas in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Shanker said...

To: Columbia University To: Columbia University President Lee Bollinger Board of Trustees Chair David Stern The Columbia University Board of Trustees --- Columbia University is an outstanding academic institution, yet some students who express dissenting views in class are being intimidated and silenced by certain professors who have promoted a biased and politicized agenda in their classroom. We, members of the Columbia University community - including students, faculty, staff, alumni, and the general community - call on Columbia University to renew its commitment to the principles of academic freedom, high standards of intellectual inquiry, and freedom of expression in the...

Bollinger's Blindness New York Sun Staff Editorial October 22, 2004 "I think something extremely important is happening on our campuses. They are now turned into sites for cultivation of critical judgment for responsible citizenship in what we hope will remain a free republic. Even as late as five years ago no one would have dared stand on the steps of the Law Library on Columbia Campus and condemn the military thuggery of people like Ariel Sharon. Innocent people in Jenin, Kandahar, Shalamcheh, or Baghdad are brutally massacred and no one would have dared to condemn these acts publicly. But not...

A committee appointed by the president of Columbia University for months has been quietly probing allegations of bias and intimidation by faculty, particularly in Middle East studies, The Jewish Week has learned. The panel convened by President Lee Bollinger comes at a time when Jewish students at the Ivy League university have complained that some Middle East classes are unbalanced and that faculty members have used their authority to promote anti-Israel activism. “We want to preserve a healthy atmosphere on campus,” said Vincent Blasi, a Columbia Law School professor who chairs the committee. “We want to make sure that classroom...

NEW YORK - Columbia University president Lee Bollinger plans "specific steps" soon in response to allegations that professors and lecturers at the Ivy League university made vitriolic and malicious comments against Israel in classes. Bollinger made the pledge in a Wednesday phone call to Anti-Defamation League national director Abraham Foxman. Bollinger didn't detail the character of the steps, but emphasized "the matter will be handled immediately." New York's Columbia University was recently embarrassed by reports that Middle Eastern professors are exploiting their academic standing to express extreme political views on Israel, using slanderous and defamatory statements. The allegations against the...

October 28, 2004 Edition > Section: New York Printer-friendly version Email this article Bollinger to Probe Bias on Campus BY JACOB GERSHMAN - Staff Reporter of the Sun October 28, 2004 Engulfed in a public relations crisis, Columbia University has decided to investigate student claims that some professors are prejudiced against Israel and stifle opposing views in the classroom. Columbia's president, Lee Bollinger, said in a statement yesterday that he was "troubled" by student accusations against professors featured in a new documentary film, "Columbia Unbecoming," produced by a pro-Israel group in Boston. Calling the student accounts "disturbing," Mr. Bollinger said...

<p>NEW ORLEANS - In the run-up to this fall's statewide elections, Louisiana Republicans turned to top White House strategist Karl Rove for advice - and a little help raising money.</p> <p>The man credited with shaping President George W. Bush's politics and policies was the main speaker at an event held for major Republican contributors here Friday evening.</p>

Speaking of this latest High Speed Vessel to hoist the Stars and Stripes, Rear Admiral Paul Ryan, Commander Mine Warfare Command, US Navy said “the name Swift is most appropriate, because of its high speed, it reached 47 knots on sea trials.”

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - A group of powerful state Republicans has met with some of the seven GOP candidates for governor in an effort to narrow the field and avoid a possible Democrat-only runoff. State Rep. Hunt Downer will soon receive the endorsement of the statewide group, one of his opponents said. A group led by Republican fundraiser and shipyard owner Donald "Boysie" Bollinger met with at least three of the seven GOP candidates, one by one, Monday in a hotel conference room near the New Orleans airport, Downer and others said. For months, party leaders worried in private...

At an invitation-only alumni reception in Washington, DC, yesterday, Columbia University President Lee Bollinger defended his refusal to fire Nicholas deGenova, the controversial professor who called for a "million Mogadishus," while admitting the public outcry, including 15,000 emails, was hurting Columbia's reputation. In response to an angry alumnus' question about the controversy and its negative impact on Columbia's reputation and alumni donations, Bollinger said that deGenova's remarks, which occured during a faculty-organized "teach-in" and included a claim that "U.S. patriotism is inseparable from imperial warfare and white supremacy," were "reprehensible," but claimed they were protected by the First Amendment. Bollinger...

The following is my email to Professor Nicholas De Genova of Columbia University who was quoted in the New York Post as wishing a "million Mogadishus" on American servicement in Iraq at an anti-war rally. This was reported on FreeRepublic on this thread, Columbia Prof wishes death to GIs. Here's my email to him: Nicholas De Genova, Your call for the US Military to suffer a "million Mogadishus" has crossed a serious line on civility and duty and commitment to our nation. You are wishing for the death of 18,000,000 of your fellow countrymen and women, individuals who are fighting...

Bollinger: No Plan to Reprimand De Genova Bollinger issued a statement in response to a letter from the U.S. Congress. By Megan Greenwell Spectator Associate News Editor Two days after Professor Nicholas De Genova returned to class for the first time in a week, the controversy surrounding his name continues. On Tuesday, in his fourth public statement since De Genova's comments at an anti-war teach-in two weeks ago, University President Lee Bollinger said, unequivocally and for the first time in an official capacity, that he would not consider punishing De Genova for his statements. Bollinger released the announcement to CNN...

<p>Columbia's president is right to call for journalism-school reform.</p> <p>Friday, July 26, 2002 12:01 a.m.</p> <p>A seemingly arcane debate has just started to fizz at Columbia University, one that has all the makings of a major--or at least a medium-sized--culture war. Watch it closely and root for The Right Side.</p>