Let Khatami Speak

I don't rarely disagree with Andrew Sullivan, but I think his outrage over former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami's speaking at Harvard is misplaced.

Sullivan says:

I graduated from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. I'm appalled they would give a platform to an Islamist theocrat like Khatami.

I say, let him speak. Let him tell us about his society's oppression of women and gays, so we better understand who we are dealing with.

When I was at college, the left was constantly protesting conservatives' right to speak on campus. Reagan's Star Wars program was very controversial at the time, and the liberals on campus tried to shut down a forum on the topic. It wasn't that they wanted to debate the pro-Star Wars proponents. They wanted to shut any debate down. Academia should be a safe haven to free speech.

I'm surprised at Sullivan. He recently even posted this quote from Jefferson, which if he truly believes, would argue for letting Khatami speak:

...truth is great and will prevail if left to herself; that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate...

Emphasis added.