The New York Times reported yesterday that Columbia has disciplined eight of its students for their role in the protest during a visit by Jim Gilchrist, founder of the anti-immigration Minutemen Project. The students stormed the stage in the middle of speeches by members of the group. Students at our more rebellious northern neighbor staged a demonstration even more ill-advised than Stephen Morse’s. Check it out:

Of course the “discipline” in question amounts to little more than a slap on the wrist — “warnings and censures [that] will be noted on the students’ transcripts for varying lengths of time.”
All this begs the question, what is Penn’s administration doing about our own free speech controversy?

Last week’s Finkelstein mini-scandal gave Penn a chance to enter the college free speech fracas.

I wouldn’t argue for discipline by the university, especially considering Columbia only took its course of action when its hand was forced by national media coverage. Penn is fortunate to have had its own firestorm constrained largely to the pages of the Daily Pennsylvanian (and The Spin), and following Columbia’s symbolic example wouldn’t accomplish anything.

Still, there is no reason President Gutmann or other members of the administration shouldn’t have weighed in on on the controversy. When a dispute of this nature, especially one that threatens to engulf an entire academic department, goes on for more than a week on a college campus, you would expect the leader of that community to make some sort of statement, token or otherwise.
The administration’s silence on the issue belies at best apathy and at worst a complete detachment from and disregard for the compelling issues affecting the community their supposed to be leading.

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