Shooting to Miss?

Jimmy Breslin wrote a novel, The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight, that came to my mind while covering what is now an international story about charges that some professors in Columbia's Department of Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures (MEALAC) bully and intimidate students who don't agree with them. Since one of my beats is education—from pre-kindergarten on—I have covered a number of dysfunctional college and university administrations around the country. But the handling of this controversy by Columbia's president, Lee Bollinger, and provost Alan Brinkley is a model of how to confuse and worsen a situation while trying to resolve its core problems.