Columbia University Mulls Bias Report Findings

After months of strife on and off campus, Columbia University released its Ad Hoc Grievance Committee Report (read report here) about allegations that university professors created a hostile environment for Jewish students yesterday, saying that overall, Columbia is not anti-Semitic. But Columbia doesn't really have any sort of way to process students' grievances against professors in a constructive way. However, there is some question about the page 1 NY Times story, which broke the committee's findings: It seems that Columbia and the Times may have made a deal that would give the Times access to the report if they didn't report on the students' opinions, according to CampusJ. The daily school paper, the Columbia Spectator, spoke to students who generally felt the report was problematic for a number of reasons (stating the obvious, not looking into more than three incidents, etc.), but did appreciate that the lack of an effective grievance procedure was highlighted. The Columbia professor at the center of one of the complaints, Joseph Massad, found the findings "unfair", as the report said reports of an alleged outburst seemed "credible" and had "exceeded commonly accepted bounds."

One interesting sentiment and concern noted by a Columbia graduate student was that the university needed to have a better way of preventing outside groups from agitating campus issues; we wonder if this is actually possible, because are college campuses totally able to exist in their own bubbles? Or aren't they a part of the community outside them? The NY Times did do an article about how many Manhattanville residents feels the college is purposefully making some areas look like a "blight."