Nearly 50 student leaders and a dozen administrators sat down with University President Lee Bollinger for an hour on Thursday for a passionate yet civil discussion to air concerns about Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s scheduled speech on campus on Monday.

When asked by Bollinger, student leaders overwhelmingly agreed that the event was in line with the academic purpose of the University, but several students expressed their disappointment in Bollinger’s handling of the invitation, with many airing concerns about student participation. Meanwhile, students began to solidify plans for a rally on Low Plaza this Monday.

Students’ concerns with the event included the logistics of establishing a rally on campus and the worry that lending Ahmadinejad a podium from which to speak would elevate and legitimize his views. Those in attendance expressed their greatest concerns regarding how students would be involved in the event itself.

“A girl came up to me after [a College Democrats meeting last night]—she was an Iranian student, an Iranian refugee, and she was near tears. She said, ‘I came to Columbia just for this moment, and I can’t believe the event is closed off before I can even register for it,’” Josh Lipsky, CC ’08 and president of the Columbia University College Democrats, said, while expressing his disappointment that only the most well-connected of students had been able to snatch up seats. He called on those in the room to give their seats to underclassmen.

Administrators said that 80 percent of all seats had been reserved for students. For those without a spot, the event will be available via Webcast. Additionally, student services officials said that plans were already in place to host overflow viewing events in lounges in Wien and John Jay residence halls.

Christien Tompkins, CC ’08, co-chair of the United Students of Color Council and member of Students Promoting Empowerment and Knowledge, compared the invitation of Ahmadinejad to that of Jim Gilchrist and said he was “disappointed” in Bollinger’s leadership for going out of his way to denounce the Iranian head of state and but not the “racist” founder of the Minutemen Project. Bollinger replied that issuing statements about all potentially controversial speakers would produce a “chilling effect,” harming the free flow of ideas on campus.

David Feith, CC ’09 and editor of the Jewish affairs publication The Current, expressed his concern that there was a difference between refusing to suppress hateful speech and actively inviting and providing a platform for it. Bollinger responded that the invitation very well may serve to help controversial speakers, but that the negative is “far outweighed by the importance of confronting ideas and not shielding ourselves from the world as it is.”

Other students asked Bollinger why there was so little advance notice, what provisions had been made for protesters, if students not able to attend the event could ask questions, and how students could weigh in on future invitations to controversial leaders.

Beyond the meeting with Bollinger, students were forming the Columbia Coalition, an ad-hoc group created ”to give a safe, peaceful ... scholarly demonstration of the various views that are really within the Columbia campus” according to Aaron Krieger, CC ’10 and one of the coalition’s coordinators. Kriegel said that more than 20 groups had expressed interest in joining a speak-out that is tentatively planned to take place this Monday on Low Plaza. The group is planning to allot time to student groups to be filled however they wish. Organizers will meet with University administrators early this morning to hammer out security and logistical details.

The group had created an e-mail address to which students could send questions that the moderators would choose to pose to Ahmadinejad at the event. As of press time, nearly 100 students had joined the coalition’s Facebook group.

Columbia has quickly become a central point of criticism and focus from outside the University. The New York Post was interviewing students on campus, news trucks filled Broadway, the Fox News Channel reached out to various student groups to find representatives to appear on air. A helicopter hovered above campus. At one point, Bloomberg News posted a later-retracted article stating that the event had been cancelled.

Presidential candidate and U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., whose daughter graduated from Columbia last year, denounced the University for inviting Ahmadinejad. “A man who is directing the maiming and killing of Americans troops should not be given an invitation to speak at an American university,” he said in a statement.

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn issued a similar denunciation. “The idea of Ahmadinejad as an honored guest anywhere in our city is offensive to all New Yorkers,” she said in a statement. “He can say whatever he wants on any street corner, but should not be given center stage at one of New York’s most prestigious centers of higher education.”

Meanwhile, conservative bloggers and Jewish organizations urged many to flood Bollinger’s office with e-mails and phone calls trying to convince him to rescind the invitation.

View a slideshow on Ahmadinejad and Columbia.

Josh Hirschland can be reached at Josh.Hirschland@columbiaspectator.com.