On Monday, Sept. 24, I was mad. Two days after the second-holiest day of the Jewish year, Yom Kippur, Columbia University had invited Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to express his views in a "free speech" type debate. The president of Iran is known for denouncing the Holocaust as a myth, calling for the destruction of Israel and supplying Iraqi insurgents with Iranian weapons to kill and wound American soldiers. Just two days after listening to my rabbi list sins you should redeem yourself for, I could not help but wonder which ones Ahmadinejad did not commit.Ahmadinejad's visit took the place of a visit from the leader of the Minuteman Project, an organization seeking to secure U.S. borders, going so far as to create fences and to patrol the border in search of illegal immigrants. The decision to allow one speaker over the other was unusual since the leader of an all-American organization wasn't allowed to speak, yet the leader of a nation that exports terrorism was. Yet, some stated that even Hitler would have been allowed to speak if he had requested the forum prior to the invasion of Poland.

So, on that heart-racing morning , I woke up early to turn on TV news stations to find out what time the president of Iran would speak in case I had time to watch it. No stations mentioned when the president would speak, and neither did they explain if it would be televised or shown later.

The most tantalizing bit of information I found was that the president was staying at a hotel across from the Jewish Heritage Museum. How could the media devote more time to Britney Spears' umpteenth drug overdose and not cover the simplest details concerning this monumental and uncharacteristic invitation by an Ivy League university? Rather than focus on the event's logistics, the media mocked the speaker and Columbia's intentions for inviting him in the first place.

Although much less a controversial figure than Ahmadinejad, former President Jimmy Carter's visit to Brandeis last year to discuss his points of views in his published work Palestine: Peace not Apartheid was thoroughly organized at least several days before the actual visit. Included in the visit were prescreened questions asked by Brandeis students, followed by Alan Dershowitz, a professor at Harvard Law School.

Brandeis took care to explain what time the event was taking place, where, how you could view it if you weren't able to be there. If you missed the date completely, the University provided access online so you could view it at your leisure.

None of this information was covered by the media in preparation for the esteemed visit by the Iranian president. I finally managed to locate a copy of the president's transcript on the Arizona Daily Star's Web site, after hours of scrupulous Google searching. The transcript was 13 pages long.

Lee Bollinger, president of Columbia University, introduced Ahmadinejad, but his introduction unequivocally left me with one underlying question: Why invite the president of Iran with the expressed aim of culturing ourselves with differences in opinions, but then continue with such opening and closing statements as: "Let's then be clear at the beginning. Mr. President, you exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator . Frankly-I close with this comment frankly and in all candor, Mr. President-I doubt that you will have the intellectual courage to answer these questions."

Columbia prided itself that the purpose of the visit was to receive an impartial understanding of an opposing point of view. Yet, our views on Ahmadinejad were blatantly skewed before his actual speech.

The Iranian president predictably did not answer questions forthright. For example, when asked whether he believes the Holocaust occurred, he answered with a reference to the Palestinian people, saying they are suffering at the hands of Israelis and being blamed for the Holocaust, though they played no role in it.

Also, he backhandedly stated his views on America when discussing his theological beliefs on science and discovery. "Some big powers do not want to see the progress of other societies and nations. They turn to thousands of reasons, make allegations, place economic sanctions to prevent other nations from developing and advancing, all resulting from their distance from human values, moral values and the teachings of the divine prophet. Regretfully, they have not been trained to serve mankind."

With most likely the intent of a good publicity stunt, Columbia University's decision to invite Ahmadinejad did more damage than good. Columbia had no right to invite Ahmadinejad to replace pro-American speakers, but it also had no right to disrespect and prejudge the invited speaker before he spoke.

As Minuteman Project leader Jim Gilchrist stated after his invitation to speak at Columbia was revoked, "I've always respected Columbia, but I've relegated it to a gutter school after that incident. They've stopped free speech. That's worse than killing people. With that, you can kill an entire nation.