Matt Sanchez, a Columbia University junior and corporal in the Marines, gives a scorching first-hand account of the disgraceful manner in which he has been treated on the campus because of his military connection:
I was publicly humiliated in front of several hundred of my fellow classmates…
[F]ellow student Monique Dols…on Activities Day…didn’t just lecture me on my stupidity in serving our nation; she also yelled that I was a baby killer…
[F]or months Dols and her friends had been disrupting pretty much every event I attended [as well as almost causing a riot in the now infamous Minutemen affair].
And how has the university administrators responded to this harassment and other incidents relating to military veterans?
Dols & Co…[have] gone completely unpunished… The university has chalked it up to free speech.
… The school also has no faculty member who specifically deals with veteran affairs.
…[W]hen a Marine deployed to Iraq was having problems clearing up an error on his tuition bill, no one on staff was prepared to help him break through the school’s bureaucracy.
Sanchez concludes, with appropriate acerbity:
Columbia veterans would love to invite Marines and sailors onto the campus during next year’s Fleet Week – but we don’t want them to experience the Columbia version of a sniper attack.
…All points of view are welcome at Columbia, from Venezuelan presidents to voices from vaginas.
Unless you’re in the military.