role models at Columbia

The perpetually dissatisfied teaching staff at Columbia has a new mission: to make sure that university president Lee Bollinger stays in line after his blistering attack on the Chief Weasel of Iran in September.

Earlier this week, one hundred Columbia faculty members signed letter, calling it a “statement of concern,” and read it to Bollinger at a faculty meeting. Were they actually reading him the riot act, a la Larry Summers at Harvard?

No! Of course not! Whatever gave you that idea? No!

“I didn’t get the sense that this is the final call for Bollinger,” said Peter Bearman, a professor of sociology. “Rather, the prevailing mood was one in which faculty eloquently modeled how to disagree, without insult or ad hominem charges.”

See? In the super-civilized world of Congress and the American university, if you want to get your message across in a respectful way, all you have to do is “model” correct behavior and speech.

One problem: we are not living in a super-civilized world.
Perhaps they haven’t noticed?