Even before President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s speech on campus was officially announced, student leaders began debating about how to react to the news.

In a rare show of solidarity among campus groups, several student leaders came together to craft a statement that supported the University’s event, while opposing Ahmadinejad’s views and—in many cases—the University’s handling of the announcement.

About 10 students actually wrote the statement, participants said, but many more were consulted during the writing process. Ultimately, a dozen students signed on.

“Potentially, I foresaw the possibility of President Ahmadinejad, and the strong opinions I think he is going to elicit from the Columbia community definitely warranted that student leaders discuss ... how students are going to respond,” said Josh Rosner, CC ’08 and president of Hillel who first proposed getting the various student leaders together early Wednesday morning. “We did not start out ... to make a statement, that’s sort of how the meeting evolved.”

The relatively unified reaction comes after two years of controversial speaking events—by former attorney general John Ashcroft, Minuteman Project founder Jim Gilchrist, and Norman Finkelstein, among others—which frequently pitted student groups against each other.

Several student council leaders, heads of club funding boards, and other club presidents were notified about the event early in the day via an e-mail from the Office of the President. They were also invited to a meeting with President Lee Bollinger on Friday to discuss their concerns.

While plans are in still in preliminary stages, at least four organizations—Hillel, the Columbia Queer Alliance, Everyone Allied Against Homophobia, and the Columbia University College Republicans—said last night that they are planning protests for the day of the event. Representatives stressed that the demonstrations would be peaceful and that they are inviting other groups to join them.

“How many people in the western hemisphere, or the world for that matter, will get a chance to protest him [Ahmadinejad]?” said Chris Kulawik, CC ’08 and president of the College Republicans who signed the statement. He later added, “I think he’s one of the most dangerous people in the world today.”

Iranian-American student Ash Shahsavari, a member of the General Studies Student Council’s communications committee, said that he planned to protest the event with or without the University’s permission.

“We talked to the University, and they said they need five to seven days to approve protest,” Shahsavari said. “There will be protests anyway.”

Public affairs officials late last night declined to comment on plans to accommodate demonstrators. The student statement implored the University to provide opportunities for students to protest.

“We believe that this presents an incredible opportunity for the student body,” the statement said, adding, “We are disturbed, however, by the extremely short notice given for this event.”

One of the organizers of student response, Aaron Krieger, CC ’10 and a leader of the CQA, EAAH, and Gayava, said that while he was “completely opposed” to Ahmadinejad’s views, he respected Columbia’s right to invite him. Krieger said he was most upset by the short time frame given to form a response.

“This hasn’t been handled particularly well. I don’t have a seat in the discussion because it closed after 30 minutes,” Krieger said.

“It’s outrageous that the public and the press were informed before the general student body.”

“It stifles debate to announce it this week. Once the invitation was sent, people should have been told. I feel like it was shambled terribly,” said Student Governing Board president Jonathan Siegel, CC ’08, who signed the statement.

GSSC president Niko Cunningham, who signed the statement, said that he would be working with the other undergraduate student councils to “get the word out to students that there are reasonable ways to protest.”

Fellow council president Liz Strauss, SEAS ’08, said that the administration acted correctly in waiting to notify student leaders.

“There’s absolutely no reason that the student body needed to be invited into discussion about an event that was potentially not even going to happen,” said Strauss, the only council president who did not sign the petition. “Bollinger was absolutely correct in holding off his announcement until he was absolutely sure that this was going to happen.”

Other student leaders expressed concerns that the statement was not critical enough of the invitation itself. Columbia Queer Alliance president Peter Gallotta, CC ’09, who signed the statement, said that while he welcomed the opportunity to engage in intellectual discourse, he was uncomfortable with the statement’s assertion that “no views are too disreputable to be excluded,” and said he was concerned that Ahmadinejad’s rhetoric might devolve into “hate speech.”

David Feith, editor-in-chief of Jewish affairs magazine The Current, didn’t sign the statement because he was more critical of Ahmadinejad. While praising the unity effort, he said, “I personally wish the statement would have focused more on Ahmadinejad and examined ... if Columbia should go out of its way to give ... the respect that comes with a podium to someone with Ahmadinejad’s views and goals.”

Many of the same student leaders who led initiatives yesterday have been invited to meet with Bollinger today to discuss the event, though some felt that a meeting would not sufficiently address their concerns.

Joy Resmovits, Tom Faure, and Laura Schreiber contributed to this article.
The reporters can be reached at news@columbiaspectator.com.