180 lashes and eight months in jail is the punishment meted out to an Arab professor who made the mistake of having contact (a cup of coffee) with an unrelated woman, according to an article in The Times (London).

The news struck us as ironic since so many American Universities in general -- and Columbia University in particular -- continue to provide forums and accept money from the dictatorships of the very Arab governments that support such behavior.  Chief among them, Saudi Arabia and Iran.

The professor due to have the skin repeatedly ripped from his back is a well-respected Saudi teacher of psychology at Umm al-Qra University in Mecca, The Times reports.  He is said to be married, in his late 50s.

Likewise, The Times notes, a 37-year-old U.S. mother-of-three was jailed in Saudi Arabia after being spotted having coffee with a male colleague at a Starbucks.

This type of suppression doesn't seem to register with some academics and administrators, who turn a blind eye to such behavior and continue to welcome the perpetrators to campus.  One of the most oppressive and repressive leaders alive today, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, was greeted with frequent applause when he spoke at Columbia on September 24, 2007. 

Students, professors and administrators at Columbia, it seems, welcome Ahmadinejad's anti-American, anti-Israel messages but never question his treatment of his own citizens.