So Columbia Really Screwed This Up, Huh?

Plus some other thoughts on the protests, including the anti-Semitism debate

I’m not going to pretend I have strong views about any of the campus protests currently going on. I think it’s obviously true that university campuses can’t just cede some patch of ground to an activist group for an extended period because they. . . feel very strongly about something? Have enough numbers to bully others out of that space? This just doesn’t work.

On the other hand, I think it’s an obviously bad idea to have cops come in and drag the protesters off screaming. Assuming it’s a peaceful encampment or protest, it seems like calling the cops shouldn’t be the first or second or third thing administrators do. 

But I do feel pretty strongly that Columbia University has provided us with a very embarrassing, very high-profile example of how not to handle all this. As you likely know by now, and as this episode of The Daily explains, a lot of this can be traced back to President Nemat “Minouche” Shafik’s appearance before Congress. Going in, The Daily reports, Shafik and her team very much wanted to avoid the fates that had befallen other college presidents who had recently appeared before Congress, and who had gotten very mucked up in the sort of “Well, teeeeeeeeeeeeechnically” discourse that doesn’t fly in front of grandstanding politicians. So she took a much harder line on campus anti-Semitism, at one point even appearing to unilaterally declare that a crazy professor would be disciplined.