Here’s the headline: Columbia grads tear up diplomas to protest school, Mahmoud Khalil arrest: ‘I’m not a proud alumni at all’—Chris Nessi. NY Post. March 30, 2025
Notice anything? Yes in this Age of Disnumbred Pronouns and Illogical Antecedents, when He can be They and She can be Them, Columbia graduate Amali Tower, made the statement Nessi quotes. Sometime, one might think, during the course of a four-year university education at a prestigious school, Amali should have come across the feminine version of alumnus, i.e., alumna. Maybe at her graduation in 2009? And maybe Amali Tower heard at sometime that alumni is the plural for men in particular and for all graduates in general and that alumnae is plural for female graduates. Doesn’t matter. Amali has just ripped up the diploma. Duh, dat dat dahhh daaa, daaa, da dat dahh dahhh.(You know the melody)
So, four years and who can add up how much money for room, board, and all those and items like books for an education all gone in a meaningless symbolic act. Why “meaningless” symbolic act? Well, if Amali needs to prove to a future employer that she graduated from a college, she need only pay a small fee for the school to make a duplicate. Heck. Columbia is so flush with endowment, the school might even print one free of charge. And bypassing paper documentation, there’e always email from the school’s office of records.
But show is all. So, a group of Columbia graduates ripped up their diplomas in a public show of support for a noncitizen who stirred up a campus with unrest, building takeover, harassment of Jewish students, disruption of classes, and general turmoil that included writing graffiti on those sacred ivy-covered campus walls.
I suppose that the diploma-rippers have sincere beliefs that their purpose is just and their actions justified. But I question the nature of an act so easily undone by necessity, that is, the necessity of proving that college education to an employer. And if those diploma-rippers have lifetime jobs that they’ll never abandon till retirement, then what’s the significance of the ripping. In a permanent job, one doesn’t have to prove that degree exists. That’s a fait accompli.
But, as I wrote above, the show is all. Which of the probably relatively wealthy Columbia diploma-rippers has pout money behind the act? Who among them has financially. Supported the Palestinians they say are in need?
Notice anything? Yes in this Age of Disnumbred Pronouns and Illogical Antecedents, when He can be They and She can be Them, Columbia graduate Amali Tower, made the statement Nessi quotes. Sometime, one might think, during the course of a four-year university education at a prestigious school, Amali should have come across the feminine version of alumnus, i.e., alumna. Maybe at her graduation in 2009? And maybe Amali Tower heard at sometime that alumni is the plural for men in particular and for all graduates in general and that alumnae is plural for female graduates. Doesn’t matter. Amali has just ripped up the diploma. Duh, dat dat dahhh daaa, daaa, da dat dahh dahhh.(You know the melody)
So, four years and who can add up how much money for room, board, and all those and items like books for an education all gone in a meaningless symbolic act. Why “meaningless” symbolic act? Well, if Amali needs to prove to a future employer that she graduated from a college, she need only pay a small fee for the school to make a duplicate. Heck. Columbia is so flush with endowment, the school might even print one free of charge. And bypassing paper documentation, there’e always email from the school’s office of records.
But show is all. So, a group of Columbia graduates ripped up their diplomas in a public show of support for a noncitizen who stirred up a campus with unrest, building takeover, harassment of Jewish students, disruption of classes, and general turmoil that included writing graffiti on those sacred ivy-covered campus walls.
I suppose that the diploma-rippers have sincere beliefs that their purpose is just and their actions justified. But I question the nature of an act so easily undone by necessity, that is, the necessity of proving that college education to an employer. And if those diploma-rippers have lifetime jobs that they’ll never abandon till retirement, then what’s the significance of the ripping. In a permanent job, one doesn’t have to prove that degree exists. That’s a fait accompli.
But, as I wrote above, the show is all. Which of the probably relatively wealthy Columbia diploma-rippers has pout money behind the act? Who among them has financially. Supported the Palestinians they say are in need?
RSS Feed