Seriousness Crisis

Democrats scrutinize Columbia: A crew of House Democrats—21 in total—just sent a letter to Columbia's board of trustees telling them it's time to "act decisively" and that they're disappointed that "Columbia University has not yet disbanded the unauthorized and impermissible encampment of anti-Israel, anti-Jewish activists on campus….

"If any Trustees are unwilling to do this, they should resign so that they can be replaced by individuals who will uphold the University's legal obligations under Title VI," the legislators wrote. (Title VI "prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, and national origin in programs and activities receiving federal financial assistance.")

Democrats had not yet exerted much public pressure on universities to shut down their tent-city pro-Palestine encampments; that has mostly been a Republican project. And since Columbia is a private university, administrators ostensibly ought to be able to make the decisions they deem best without interference from government officials. Besides, legislators should probably be more concerned with the war in Gaza, and the American role in it, than with the Coachella Lites we're seeing on college campuses.

But one theme made apparent by the Columbia encampment, and by Harvard's Claudine Gay scandal before it, is that university administrators are finally receiving scrutiny they've long deserved; there's a palpable sense that many of them are useless at actually enforcing rules, that they allow so-called "microaggressions" and bullying when such tactics are in service of left-wing student causes, and that these students are simply not busy enough nor learning very much.

It looks like an American seriousness crisis in slow motion. If our elite schools aren't producing industrious people with critical thinking skills, what good are they exactly?

Scenes from New York: Thinking you're on "the right side of history"—as Rep. Ilhan Omar (D–Minn.) says about the Columbia protesters—seems to justify a lot of bad behavior, and stifle self-reflection.

QUICK HITS

• Inside NatalCon, which just took place in Austin, Texas.

• What the battles over warrantless government surveillance powers—a.k.a. Section 702—say about today's fractured GOP.

• "You have to be a millionaire to live in Cuba today," fruit and vegetable seller Yoandris Hierrezuelo (who earns $5 a day peddling her wares in Havana) told The New York Times. "The state can no longer meet the basic needs of the population."

• Tesla clears some of China's hurdles, gets closer to being able to operate there.

• "The Catholic advocacy group Catholic Answers released an AI priest called 'Father Justin' earlier this week—but quickly defrocked the chatbot after it repeatedly claimed it was a real member of the clergy," reports Futurism.

• Bloomberg interviewed one of the first space travel agents.

• "Today's kids roam less than in earlier generations. Overscheduling and parents' safety fears are part of the reason, but it's also true that American suburbs built in the past 30 years are less walkable and bikeable than older neighborhoods. Walkability is seen mainly as a concern for urbanites, who want to be able to stroll to a cocktail bar, grocery store or museum," writes Tim Carney in The Wall Street Journal. "But walkability in suburban neighborhoods is a far more important issue. It requires building sidewalks, bike trails, playgrounds and crosswalks that are safely usable by kids."

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