Zeroisanumber: It's a group of immensely comfortable, privileged people who just watched the NYT team with a fascist and weird billionaires to kick Dr. Gay out at Harvard. They panicked and did what panicky libs who're afraid of losing their privileges do and went full-on reactionary.

I am, forgive me, a university administrator, and I have seen a lot of incompetence and foolishness from my peers and colleagues over the years, but all moral and ethical issues aside, the shocking incompetence and foolishness of Columbia's leadership here is truly something to behold.

Columbia Students Arrested Over Campus Rally May Face Other Consequenceswww.nytimes.com Students who camped in tents to protest the war in Gaza, including the daughter of Representative Ilhan Omar, may be barred from finishing the semester.

It's a group of immensely comfortable, privileged people who just watched the NYT team with a fascist and weird billionaires to kick Dr. Gay out at Harvard. They panicked and did what panicky libs who're afraid of losing their privileges do and went full-on reactionary.

It would behoove some of us to remember this with extreme prejudice

exactly they're not incompetent or foolish, they know allowing protest to continue will have consequences for their careers and positions of privilege, whereas overreacting with police violence might even improve their career chances and reward them not that this is good, but it is what it is

They are incompetent and foolish and know a lot less than you think. Trust me.

they're competent enough to get to very high leadership roles in a university

Buddy, I'm sorry to be the one to do it, but I gotta disabuse you of the idea that that is a required qualification. If anything, it's a demerit.

by the measures of competence used by the academic system, they are competent you might say that the average CEO is incompetent given that they couldn't do an 8 hour shift waiting tables, but then we're arguing what the word "competent" means, and that's a different discussion

We need a new word for it. They're competent in the way that leads to this position, but incompetent in that acceding to fascists and knowingly taking fascist positions is inherently self defeating (and foolish, but moreover, amoral).

Avoiding walking into this as if blindfolded doesn't seem to demand anything more sophisticated than does crossing a road without being hit. So we have to assume they welcome everything that results from total surrender to the far right at the cost of their institutions bsky.app/profile/donm...

Stefanik has called for the resignation of every university President she has grilled, regardless of what they have said or done. Lesson? Stick with the values your campus cares about rather than curry favor of political opportunists who oppose those values. www.columbiaspectator.com/news/2024/04...

Stefanik calls for Shafik’s resignation amid protests, reports of antisemitic incidentswww.columbiaspectator.com Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) issued a <a href="https://twitter.com/EliseStefanik/status/1782071825461039615">statement</a> on Sunday calling on University President Minouche Shafik to resign immediate...

bsky.app/profile/dada...

My hot take: many in the administrator class are mediocre in thought, character, and vision. They've gotten to where they are through incentive structures that devalue intellectual depth, moral compasses, and innovative thinking. They're not equipped for the moment.

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