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Bridging the Divide

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President Skorton’s recent visit to Iran was an excellent way to start a conversation.

Designed to introduce North American university presidents to Iranian academics, Skorton’s trip, along with a delegation from the Association of American Universities, highlighted that academic censorship still exists within the international community. Such censorship is bad for Iran, but it is also unfortunate for countries like our own, which benefit from academic partnerships with innovative and progressive institutions around the world.

As Skorton has said, he is no diplomat, and the motive behind his trip to Iran was not a political one. But Skorton is an American, and a delegation of American university presidents to Iran surely represented an American desire for enhanced international communication, at least to the Iranians with whom the delegation met.

And as is so often the case, academia once again proved to be the milieu for interaction with our political enemies. Last year, it was Columbia University that hosted Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for an on-campus lecture. In spite of our differences, Americans and Iranians seemed to be communicating.

But that communication was of a different kind. At Columbia, University President Lee Bollinger introduced Ahmadinejad with a scathing attack of his guest’s legislative policies. From a political standpoint, the attack was justified. At the same time, Bollinger’s comments undermined the purpose of Ahmadinejad’s appearance. The Iranian president visited Columbia because the academe believes in listening to all points of view, no matter how unsavory the point of view in question. Last year at Columbia, Bollinger implied that Ahmadinejad was a political figure with nothing worthwhile to say. Free academic discourse, indeed.

Our President Skorton did not meet with the Iranian leader Ahmadinejad. And although the AAU delegation did meet with the Iranian minister of science, research and technology, we will take Skorton’s word for it that the meeting was simply a courtesy to the delegation’s hosts, and not an opportunity for American university presidents to ridicule the political practices of another country. Instead, Skorton’s trip was meant to open the channels of communication between Iran and the United States, to use the field of academia to promote conversation that might not occur elsewhere.

Skorton’s visit underscores the role of academia in easing the tension between Iran and the United States, and between countries around the world. The university is a setting in which individuals can express themselves through civil discourse, in which differences are debated, not derided. Moving forward, we hope Skorton continues to view his responsibility as one of encouraging free academic conversation, devoid of politics and concerned only with promoting communication between people of vastly different backgrounds. Such a conversation will foster an improved relationship with our enemies, and a more peaceful relationship with the entire international community.

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