The tail is still wagging the dog at Columbia.
In a total capitulation to the anti-Israel campus chaos-causers, the school just cancelled the university-wide commencement ceremony on May 15.
Don’t (exclusively) blame the window-smashing, breaking-and-entering, rule-breaking radicals: This is yet another failure of Columbia’s leadership.
The school’s claim that “students emphasized that these smaller-scale, school-based celebrations are most meaningful to them and their families” is complete horse manure.
The true reason is as clear as the ravaged grass on the West Lawn: The higher-ups don’t want a scene — yet don’t dare act to prevent one by expelling troublemakers and barring them from campus.
No student who took part in the occupation of the quad, let alone of Hamilton Hall, should be allowed on campus for Commencement; all should be expelled by now.
But Columbia leaders don’t have the backbone to send that message.
Instead, they’d rather ask the NYPD do the hard work of breaking up protests every time the students get out of hand — while they undermine police efforts by handling the miscreants with kid gloves.
By rolling over, colleges are proving to the protesters that their tactics are working and the “adults in the room” are running scared.
Who loses? The overwhelming majority of students who had nothing to do with the mayhem: Kids who didn’t get a high school graduation thanks to COVID lockdowns and now won’t get the grandeur of a traditional commencement.
That is, Columbia is punishing the normal students and rewarding the radicals — who’ve shown exactly how much they disdain the university, its property and their fellow students for the last three weeks.
Nice priorities, Baroness Shafik.
Fine, some other schools are even worse: Northwestern administrators gave in to the occupiers’ demands, including full-ride scholarships for five Palestinian undergrads, and Brown placated protesters by agreeing to an October vote on divesting from Israel-linked companies.
The cowardice here is astounding: The leaders of these universities won’t stand up for the schools’ principles or for the vast majority of students, let alone combat the radicals’ rank antisemitism, all for fear offending the hard left.
They’re custodians of a proud heritage, and they’re selling it for a mess of pottage.