Twenty-two higher education institutions, including Columbia University, are now trying to raise $1 billion or more.

And last year the president of Columbia, Lee Bollinger, was pilloried for poorly dealing with accusations by pro-Israel Jewish students who alleged they were being intimidated by pro-Palestinian professors.

Various Columbia academics could care less about such “trivia”–for Bollinger has reached out to the faculty to join in fund-raising. To take him to task, as one high-minded professor says, “would be extremely counter-productive.”

Counter-productive? For whom? This sounds like a case in which some professors know where their bread is buttered.