Politics and Culture

Columbia hoped Minute-men would be satisfied by a letter saying-nothing. The letter, as reported by the Post article below essentially says: "I don't agree with what you're saying and I won't defend you're right to say it either."

Follow up:

A CHRISTMAS COVER-UP
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December 23, 2006 -- Columbia University hopes you're not reading this.

In fact, it's doing its best to see that you don't.

To select the best day of the year - effectively Christmas Eve - to dump a story is to hope that it falls through the news cracks. Thus did Columbia University President Lee Bollinger's p.r. office yesterday announce that the school's investigation into last fall's on-campus Minuteman debacle had come to a conclusion.

In a letter long on allegiance to free speech as a concept, but distressingly short on detail, Bollinger shed no light whatsoever on what the "investigation," had actually uncovered.

The probe stemmed from an Oct. 4 melee instigated by Columbia students (and, apparently, some outsiders) who objected to a lecture scheduled to be delivered by representatives of the Minutemen, an anti-free-immigration group.

Protesters rushed the stage and roughed up the speakers, effectively ending the lecture before it began.

Bollinger, ironically enough a First Amendment expert, wrung his hands and promised a full investigation.

Thus yesterday's announcement.

But nowhere in the 1,155-word letter do readers learn:

* How many students were found in violation.

* How many non-students were implicated.

* What punishment Columbia plans for those who so egregiously offended the First Amendment.

Nor did it contain an apology to Jim Gilchrist, founder of the anti-illegal immigration group The Minutemen Project, who was physically attacked and forced off the stage.

Columbia doubtless hopes the letter will settle this embarrassing episode once and for all. But it does nothing of the sort.

For a university that depends mightily on healthy town-gown relations - especially as Columbia seeks to expand its north Manhattan campus, annexing surrounding neighborhoods in the process - this letter represents a remarkable act of bad faith.

Indeed, Columbia's decision to release this announcement on Christmas weekend shows contempt not only for the school's professed esteem for free speech, but also for New York City, for alumni and for countless others who usually would wish nothing but the best for what is supposed to be one of the nation's foremost institutions of higher learning.

In trying to brush this matter under the rug, Columbia has raised the stakes of the game - shifting the focus from a gaggle of thuggish students to Bollinger and his administrators.

Bollinger's Christmas cover-up requires further attention - sometime soon after the holidays.