Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is to address one of New York's top universities during a visit to the city for the United Nations General Assembly next week, the university said.
Ahmadinejad, who is due to arrive in New York early next week, would take part in the debate at Columbia on Monday, university president Lee Bollinger said, justifying the decision to invite the president.
"Columbia, as a community dedicated to learning and scholarship, is committed to confronting ideas," he said in a statement.
Bollinger said he would introduce the event by challenging Ahmadinejad's denial of the Holocaust, his calls for the destruction of Israel and any ambitions Tehran has to acquire a nuclear weapons capability.
In fulfilling its mission as a place of learning, Bollinger said, the university would on occasion encounter "beliefs many, most or even all of us will find offensive and even odious."
"We trust our community, including our students, to be fully capable of dealing with these occasions, through the powers of dialogue and reason."
"I would also like to invoke a major theme in the development of freedom of speech as a central value in our society," he said.
New York authorities on Wednesday rejected a request by Ahmadinejad to tour Ground Zero, the site of the September 11 attacks, on security grounds.
The proposed visit had led to outspoken criticism from politicians who consider Iran a state sponsor of terrorism.
