And she nails it:
I’ve become somewhat jaded about the outrageous news that emanates from Morningside Heights via Columbia University, but I read in disbelief that President Lee Bollinger had caved in to the demands of five student hunger strikers protesting the ongoing “offenses” against multiculturalism. He coughed up $50 million to expand Columbia’s ethnic-studies endeavors, and if that isn’t something to infuriate its alumni, they’re just as misguided as Mr. Bollinger.
New York has always been an international city. The Rheingold beer commercials of the 1960s noted how there were more Greeks in New York than in Athens, more Jews than in Tel Aviv, more Puerto Ricans than in San Juan, etc. Yet we New Yorkers were all Americans, and we were proudly taught American history in the schools. My elementary school in Spanish Harlem was 90% Hispanic, yet we all spoke perfect English. The Sisters of Mercy who operated our school paid homage to our Hispanic heritage in school plays and pageants, but left the cultural apron strings to our parents. While we were reared to be Americans first, today’s academics view this form of education as indoctrination, and our culture as inferior to others. Those with this dangerous and foolish ideology need to take a good, hard look at the ethnic crises in Europe.
