They got schooled: Columbia cherry-picked students who were really, really, really into social justice activism
Ever wonder why there was a sleeper cell of pro-Hamas Columbia students ready to bang drums, pitch tents and smash windows after the attacks of October 7? Because the university consciously stacked its classes full of activists.Elite colleges have long combed their enormous pool of applicants for social justice warriors passionate about community activism.That admissions strategy backfired spectacularly when kids decided to turn their ire on the university itself in the name of Palestine.The result has been reputational damage and crippling federal budget cuts.“Columbia essentially did this to themselves,” college admissions expert Christopher Rim told The Post.
“Students involved in a lot of social justice-type activism were really sought after in the past at Columbia.”A preference for lefty activists is evident even in the Ivy League school’s application essay questions.One essay prompt asks students to discuss a “perspective, viewpoint or lived experience” that has “shaped the way [they] would learn from and contribute to Columbia’s diverse and collaborative community.”Another question probes prospective students’ “ability to navigate through adversity” and asks them to “describe a barrier or obstacle [they] have faced.”That’s a little rich, considering that 36% of Columbia students come from families in the top 10% of income earners, 62% come from the top 20% — and just 5% hail from the bottom 20%.“That being one of five questions for students to pick from is pretty telling,” Rim, founder and CEO of Command Education, said.“I don’t think a lot of students can really answer this if they’re wealthy and went to a private school.
A lot of them don’t have real adversity.”Columbia’s most on-the-nose case study is encampment firebrand Khymani James, who led melodramatic press conferences on behalf of the school’s pro-Palestine tent city last spring.James, who uses he/she/they pronouns, was suspended after a vide...