Yes, but that's beside the point. The whole point I'm making here is that it's a mistake to allow only "mainstream", accepted, opinions--opinions that have "proof" of some kind--a turn at the microphone, a public venue.
I'd authorize him $1,500 to come speak, too. Because...

Thank you, Lurker.

End of story, as far as I'm concerned. That's what colleges are for, see? There's no other place, no other time in your life, where a student can experiment with ideas in such a controlled environment, and an environment, moreover, where there is instant feedback. If the lecturer is F.O.S., it's dollars to donuts that during the Q-and-A period, that fact will come out, and the alert student will have a chance to rebut, to consider, to turn the F.O.S. idea over in his mind and decide for himself, aided by feedback from others in the audience, whether it is in fact F.O.S. Or whether it has merit.

But see, you are. What you are exercising (or would be, if you were the person holding the purse strings) is a kind of censorship; it is a kind of suppression of ideas. You are deciding what is--and is not--worthy to be submitted for consideration to the student body.

I firmly believe that a well-rounded education includes having any and all ideas, no matter how peculiar or repulsive, submitted for one's consideration. And I believe it's the college's unique job to do this, to allow even the peculiar and repulsive ideas free rein to be aired publicly.

Now, yes, at some level, because of inevitable budgetary considerations, somebody somewhere is going to have to decide, to prioritize--who shall we have *this* year? Shall it be James Randi, or Kent Hovind, or a panel on homeopathy?

I believe that the college that customarily, invariably, opts for the mainstream viewpoint, for the "safe" lecture--for NASA instead Hoagland, for the traveling Holocaust exhibit instead of David Irving--is doing a disservice to their students.