Enough Said? Probably Not.

Bollinger's remarks assuaged some vehement opponents, including Jacob Kriegel, an activist student leader who called the comments an "appropriate" rebuke.

But others likened Bollinger's comments to offensive and embarrassing schoolyard taunts, and some students are circulating a petition demanding an apology.

"He went overboard in trying to balance a response to a criticism by being insulting," said Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, who originally opposed Ahmadinejad's visit.

Rashid Khalidi, director of Columbia's Middle East Institute, views Ahmadinejad as a publicity hound but said that "once you bring someone to the university, unless this is just a cockfighting ring, a certain level of discourse should apply."

Bollinger, a Washington Post Co. board member who once clerked for Chief Justice Warren E. Burger, said his comments reflect his belief that, in extreme cases, it is important to express not only intellectual opposition, but also emotional revulsion.

"I wanted the emotions to match the words," he said.

"Monday, this campus was Lee Bollinger's version of paradise," said Nicholas Lemann, dean of the journalism school. "It's this big plaza in the middle of the city, and at every corner of the plaza, everyone was debating and disputing and speaking, protesting peacefully. That's exactly Lee's vision of what a university should be. He made the day work."

Other days have not worked so well.

In fall 2004, a Boston-based pro-Israel group showed a film in which pro-Israel Columbia students complained they had been intimidated by pro-Palestinian professors. The case ballooned into a protracted debate over anti-Semitism and academic freedom. Bollinger appointed a committee to investigate the allegations, but critics said he was too late and too timid in his response.

Jonathan Cole, former Columbia provost, said in a speech at the time that the pressures bearing down on the university reminded him of the climate on American campuses during the McCarthy era. In a pointed allusion to Bollinger, Cole said that when a professor is attacked for the content of his or her views, "leaders of research universities must come to the professor's defense."

Finally, in March 2005, Bollinger gave a strong speech saying it was "preposterous to characterize Columbia as anti-Semitic."

At an antiwar rally in 2003, an assistant professor said he hoped America would suffer a "million Mogadishus" in Iraq. Bollinger defended the instructor's right to speak. In fall 2006, student protesters stormed a stage and shut down a speech by Jim Gilchrist, head of the Minuteman Project, a group that opposes illegal immigration. Bollinger disciplined the students.

"Most everything I've written about in free speech has been about a national mentality in wartime and how it plays out in issues of free-speech liberties," Bollinger said. "The country has been very, very divided in its political culture and very confrontational in its political dialogue. And that doesn't mesh well with an academic environment that is supposed to have a norm of suspending one's beliefs and trying for understanding."