The Situation at Columbia XXXVII

Ever since a new Columbia president (Jennifer Mnookin) was appointed by the trustees back in January, many have been wondering if she would do anything to try and change Columbia’s reputation as “Vichy on the Hudson”. The reason for this reputation is obvious if you try to get on the Columbia campus, which historically has always been open. Nowadays to enter the campus you’ll need to show your papers (or QR code) to the guards at “Checkpoint Charlie”. This is because of the necessity of “keeping the Columbia community safe.” If you try and figure out what “safety problem” the checkpoints and the large new security force are there to protect against, you’ll quickly realize that the danger is that you might hold up a “Free Palestine” sign and start shouting anti-Israel slogans. If that happened, people would take pictures and video, soon social media and the New York Post would be full of stories about “anti-semitic violence at Columbia”, and Steven Miller would again take away the…