Ugh. Richard, you've made it clear in previous posts that you're set in your ways on the Manhattanville issue. Fine, although I think you're really much too dismissive here. I mean, you're literally arguing with a balloon; you must be aware that there are better versions of these arguments out there for you to engage with.

And what about the other issues, which concern academic topics? Is it silly by definition to worry about faculty diversity, to ask for ethnic studies programs and for a diversification of the Core Curriculum? I must admit that I don't know all the details of the situation at Columbia, but those sound like reasonable concerns (particularly regarding the Core Curriculum, since it's required).

Or am I acting like a left-winger who gives liberalism a bad name?
 

I follow this issue pretty closely, and I've never heard a serious argument about Columbia's expansion. Well, one: I thought the concern that Harlem locals would be shut off from the waterfront was a serious and legitimate concern. But beyond that, I've never heard anything serious other than anti-white racism, fears of mysterious viruses issuing from Columbia labs, and demands for Columbia to pay people's rent for a decade.

Do you really think that Columbia does not make a serious effort to promote faculty diversity? I could be wrong, but I would guess that being a scholar and member of a minority group would give you a serious leg up over an equally or slightly more qualified white peer at Columbia.

If you read the articles, Columbia mentions a number of things it does on the ethnic studies, etc., front.

And yes, it is silly to go on a hunger strike to ask for a diversification of the Core Curriculum.

I think, really, you have to consider these things in their totality. Does anyone really think that Columbia is a racist institution? (Well, apparently these hunger strikers do.) That it is not, in fact, a pretty liberal and progressive institution?

I'm sure it's not perfect. But it is hardly the big bad villain that these strikers make it out to be.
 

Oh, and by the way, poster--I consider myself a liberal, which is one reason why sloganistas like these protesters make me cringe.
 

The diversity issue is fast becoming a joke when its biggest champions seem to find no effort done in pursuit of that diversity worthy.

At what point does an institution, or a culture, say "we honestly tried, but it's time to move on with (the massive accumulating pile) of new business"?
 

12:13 here.

Richard, you seem to take the intentions of Columbia administrators as definitive. Perhaps they are "trying" on faculty recruitment front, for example, but their efforts are still inadequate. That seems like a possible, even likely, state of affairs, isn't it?

As I said before, I find the diversification of the Core Curriculum the most compelling issue due to its required nature. Perhaps a hunger strike is the wrong tactic here, but shouldn't Columbia administrators (and observers like you and me) expect to be somewhat more mature than the protesters and to be able to look at the issues on their own merits?

As for your assertion that Bollinger and Columbia reside somewhere near the outer bound of reasonable liberalism, I think that's silly. Look, 90% of Columbia faculty or whatever vote Democrat and yes, Bollinger supports affirmative action (although is he really more liberal than Ruth Simmons, Amy Gutmann, or Shirley Tilghman?).

But Columbia as an institution has effects that go way beyond the conscious liberal attitudes held by its President and administrators. All these Ivy League schools are gate-keepers and play a very large role in determining who is a member of the elite in this country. Imagine being born in the housing projects at 125th and Amsterdam and knowing that, given the public education you're likely to receive, you have almost no chance of going to the incredibly wealthy college just a few blocks from your home.

Columbia is obviously not responsible for creating such structural inequality, but it certainly embodies it in certain senses, and I think the protesters in their crude way are responding to that.
 

Columbia has long been up there with the worst slumlords in the city. But I'm sure we can trust them to handle this project humanely. And you go boy -- tell those damn overprivileged kids to stop blowing up balloons and get a life!
 

"Columbia has long been up there with the worst slumlords in the city"? Care to back that up?

I understand the frustration of being born in projects at 125th and Amsterdam and feeling like you can't go to Columbia. It's a genuine problem, and one that Columbia has a civic responsibility to try to address in every way it can.

I suspect a greater problem, however, is growing up in that area and not *wanting* to go to Columbia.
 

12:13 here again, returning belatedly.

Richard, if you believe the people in those projects are uninterested in education and self-advancement, I suggest you go over there and talk to some of them. I think you'll find the truth to be otherwise.

If they don't want to go to Columbia, it's like how you and I don't want to have superpowers -- why would you ever desire something that it seems impossible to have?
 

Maybe I read the 8 previous comments too quickly but is no one shocked that an anorexic student was allowed to go on hunger strike? Presumably the hunger strike was publicized on campus, is there no one looking out for the student's health? (If she is known to be anorexic,medically, and allowed to continue school normally some sort of contract involving her being willing to keep her weight steady in a healthy range, would be arranged with her health care provider in order to stay in school.) I think more than the problem of her being a " type of left-winger(s) who give liberalism a bad name. " This student who collapsed is self destructive and ought to be intervened on for that not for her liberalism, since the title of Rich's post was ..."Let em Eat... Nothing" I Had to respond.ebr
 

RB - You really don't know Columbia has long been accused of being a landgrabbing slumlord? Here's an article from 1984:
http://www.stopcolumbia.org/content/view/62/

And re the current debate, here's a quote (a link following) from a rather good discussion of the "ethnic cleansing" Columbia is engaging in to serve its own interests:

"Since the late 1990s, Columbia has amassed about 70 percent of the property it seeks, vacating many of the buildings. As the university has grown, West Harlem’s manufacturing and service shops have fallen by the wayside. In the 1990s, West Harlem’s industrial sector added 403 jobs to the workforce.

"But between 2000 and 2002, when Columbia picked up the bulk of its Manhattanville property, this same industry suffered a sharp loss of 372 jobs, according to a study commissioned by Community Board 9 (CB9), which represents West Harlem.

"For local residents, Columbia’s expansion comes with the sting of irony. Having emptied out a large portion of Manhattanville, the university is now asking New York to find the area “blighted,” so that it can use eminent domain, a state government power, in order to force remaining holdouts to sell and demolish the area for “public benefit,” as university President Lee Bollinger put it in a March interview on WNYC’s “The Brian Lehrer Show.” This “public benefit” comes in the form of urban renewal. Bollinger says the new campus is about building the future. Columbia estimates that its new facility will generate 7,086 permanent jobs on site, though the vast majority of those would not be available to the average person currently living in West Harlem, where 32 percent of residents hold less than a high school education.

"“Moving all these people out and getting them ready for the development is a very systematic sort of ethnic cleansing, to put it harshly,” says attorney Philip van Buren, who represents three of the auto shops at 3251 Broadway. “But that’s what it is. You’re replacing one community — a low income, mostly black one — with one that is educated.” Though only 291 residents live within the construction area, the university’s environmental impact statement submitted to the city reports that housing pressures may displace as many as 3,293 surrounding residents by 2030."

http://www.indypendent.org/2007/08/31/columbia-expansion-101-wealthy-university-devours-west-harlem/

[Looks like a rather good little independent online newspaper.]



http://www.stopcolumbia.org/content/view/62/