The “free speech” defense doesn’t seem to extend to conservative speakers. In December 2001, three student groups at Columbia organized an independently-funded lecture by author Ann Coulter. I worked with the students in helping them schedule the lecture and secure funding. The day of the lecture, administrators changed the location of the room because of threats from liberal campus protestors. Nearly two-thirds of the audience didn’t find the room until after the lecture was finished. As the question and answer session began, protestors booed and shouted to the point where neither the speaker nor the questioner could hear one another. That’s the Left’s idea of a “dialogue.” It’s not enough that they not listen to opposing views, they must deny others the opportunity, too. Perhaps they should rename the department the Hugo Chavez School of Journalism.

Several weeks after the lecture, the student organizer called me in a panic because Columbia was threatening to withhold his degree because a bill for two security officers assigned to the lecture wasn’t paid. However, several witnesses, including the speaker, noted that there was not a security presence at the lecture. Perhaps campus security couldn’t find the new location either.

As any organization that sponsors conservative speakers on college campuses know, the security scam is a frequent dirty trick used by liberal administrators in order to intimidate students. As with Columbia, they tell the conservative groups that because our speakers are so “controversial,” the students must pay for additional security. Jason Mattera of Young America’s Foundation wrote about one of the most infamous cases of the security scam, “In 2000, when Charlton Heston was requested, student organizers were told they needed to pay for a bomb-sniffing dog, ten police officers, two full-body metal detectors, two metal detector wands, a paramedic team, and four pints of Mr. Heston’s blood type.”

Let’s not forget that the reason some conservative speakers need security is to protect them from violent liberals. In response to both Ann Coulter and Dinesh D’Souza being invited to speak on campus by conservative groups, a writer for The Columbia Spectator wrote, “Crackpots like D'Souza and Coulter should be afraid to open their mouths on a campus with such a proud left-wing history.”

Obviously, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has nothing to be afraid of when he speaks at Columbia. Later that day he’ll participate in a videoconference at the National Press Club. In case there was any doubt, he would be safe there, too.

It’s obvious that the Columbia University administrators didn’t bother to listen to Coulter’s December 2001 speech, “Terrorism and Its Left-wing Sympathizers.” They should also brush up on the classics and read Dante’s Inferno. Here's a place to start: “The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis.”