Speakergate 2012
Speakergate 2012 refers to a general kerfluffle surrounding everyone's favorite campus character, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and everyone's favorite student group, the Columbia University College Republicans in 2012.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is the current President of Iran. Invitations for him to speak at the university during the annual autumn World Leaders Forum ignited controversy (and possibly the resignation of a dean) in both 2006 and 2007; a private dinner invitation the president extended to Columbia groups renewed the uproar in 2011. Ahmadinejad once again was the center of the campus dialogue as a conspiracy within the Columbia University College Republicans (CUCR) drew in both Bwog and Spectator. This event ended in the resignation of both the conspirators, William Prasifka CC ’12, President, and David Paszko CC ’12, Director of Finance, from the CUCR Board.
Contents
The Events
Spectator Breaks the News, Bwog Challenges
On February 26, 2012 Spectator Senior Staff Writer Yasmin Gagne, after two weeks of research, published an article titled CUCR members plan to invite Ahmadinejad to campus based on - what turned out to be unendorsed the the whole CUCR board - a CUCR Draft invitation to Ahmadinejad[1]. Bwog, also receiving the same documents but assuming they where false, published an article challenging Spectator and publishing the raw draft sent to Bwog[2]. Bwog commenters quickly started accusing the Spec of wrong doing due to the improbable nature of the tip. Then everyone from CUCR started to deny that it was happening (partly because it wasn't actually happening).[3]
CUCR Sorts it Out, Everyone Apologizes
On March 1, Bwog published a story helping to clarify the situation, claiming that Prasifka and Paszko had made the whole thing up, and "leaked" it to Spectator.[4]. Bwog apologized to Spectator and announced that Prasifka and Paszko had stepped down at the request of the CUCR board.[5]
External Links
References
- ↑ http://www.columbiaspectator.com/2012/02/26/college-republicans-look-invite-ahmadinejad-campus
- ↑ http://bwog.com/2012/02/27/ahmadinejad-not-invited-to-campus-bwog-confirms/
- ↑ http://bwog.com/2012/02/28/former-cucr-president-casts-even-more-doubt-on-ahmadinejad-invitation/
- ↑ http://bwog.com/2012/03/01/we-know-what-cucr-did-last-week/
- ↑ http://www.columbiaspectator.com/2012/03/01/two-cucr-board-members-resign-after-circumventing-board
