Stanford Also "Discoursed" With a Dictator

In her column on the Iranian thug's visit to Columbia, in order to provide the dons with his insightful views on Holocaust Denial and Terrorism, Phyllis Chesler makes this important point:

Terrorists do not terrify me, but the passivity of their potential victims does – as does their glazed-over glamorization of fascist and totalitarian leaders. That Columbia University has again invited Mr. Amadinejad to lecture does not surprise me; that so many "good" people have not grasped the inevitability of such an invitation deeply saddens me.

I wonder how many people remember, or want to remember, the Gorbymania of the late 1980s. It is now just an embarrassment best forgotten along with the Soviet Union and the widespread support it received from the left and progressive academic types. The pinnacle of Gorbymania was reached at Stanford University on June 4, 1990. That was the day that the Gorbmeister visited Stanford to receive adulation worthy of Elvis. At Stanford that day were somewhere around 15,000 demonstrators most of who were there to participate in some sort of mass Gorbasm. This rapturous reception included Stanford president Donald Kennedy, who gushed:

In addition, the Soviet leader took with him enough cheers, hugs, medals, handshakes, honors and congratulations to last several lifetimes. Beleaguered at home, he was hailed here by President Donald Kennedy of Stanford as ''the architect of a great world transformation.''

It was not a complete lovefest however:

Small groups of anti-Gorbachev demonstrators - Armenian-Americans, supporters of the Baltic republics, Korean-Americans in traditional dress and others - turned up at every stop, but the police kept them at a considerable distance from the official party.

I was one of those protesters at Stanford, although our small group's opposition to Gorbachev's visit were the same as mine are now for the Columbia invite: you don't sanction evil dictatorships by having their leaders give lectures at institutions that are supposed to be based on freedom of thought. It would seem that all standards have been jettisoned in the name of subjectivism. But not quite. According to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, Columbia has no problem silencing certain opinions or debate topics. FIRE has therefore declared Columbia a free speech "red zone" for its students and (some) instructors. Sexual "harassment" is strictly verboten at Columbia; those who murder American soldiers and Marines, women, and homosexuals get the red carpet.

Crossposted at The Dougout