Whom Do you Call? Ghostbusters

In Memoriam: On the Resignations of Susan Chang-Kim, Matthew Patashnick and Cristen Kromm,
the Three Columbia Deans Whose Antisemitic Tropes Got Them Fired. *


If Murray, Akroyd, Ramis, too **
Would bust the ghosts of deans eschewed,
I’d guess they would return to schools,
Columbia, i.e., where recent fools
Once haughty, writing tropes
Like silly teens so high on dopes
Repeated all the worn cliches
That students shouted on the lawn
From dark midnight till early dawn,
Now in the new year, they are gone.
Who? You ask. Both fools and tools,
Manipulated, defying rules.
Remember last year’s college camps
That cluttered lawns and dews and damps?
Remember all simplistic talks
Of genocide on campus walks?
Recall three deans regarded Jews
As privileged whites, dismissed their views,
And their concerns and their real fright
To walk on campus in the night?
Those deans are gone, but in their wake
Their ghosts will reappear to Jews
Will paint graffiti: Hakenkreuz,
The Nazi symbol of the Left.
The feelings then will haunt again
In academia’s hallowed den.
So, Murray, Akroyd, Ramis, too,
Have yet another job to do,
To exorcise the hateful ghosts
That roam the schools along the coasts.
Their job is big and will not end
In every age it will impend
As hate’s the real ghost that haunts on.
Just look this year on campus lawn
To see the ghosts of Nazis past
Persist, indeed, and peace outlast.
The hate that ran through many ages
Persists again, indeed it rages.
The Busters’ work will never cease.
The Jews will never live in peace.


*Katherine Donlevy, US News. August 8, 2024. Online at https://nypost.com/2024/08/08/us-news/3-columbia-university-deans-resign-after-antisemitic-tropes-texts-scandal-report/


**Columbia University was one of the film locations for the original Ghostbusters.