As nearly everyone on Columbia/Barnard’s campus is aware, President Obama is speaking at Barnard’s commencement this year. This is old news. Also old news is the explosive reaction that followed the announcement of Obama’s plan. It almost goes without saying by now that far too much of this reaction was insulting and demeaning to Barnard students, which only served to incite a second backlash against those who were doing the insulting in the first place.
But now that several weeks and an entire Spring Break has passed, the time has come to put our emotional reactions on hold and do some campus-wide soul searching. What exactly led to the volatile reaction at Columbia that followed Obama’s announcement? How was such news even related to the misogynistic, undignified, and abusive comments that were made about Barnard women? How can we simultaneously pride ourselves on the level of our intellect at Columbia College while at the same time stereotyping and attacking the dignity of an entire college baselessly, just because the President made a decision independent of any student’s influence?
It seems that the problems at play here are twofold. First, too many Columbia students hold an insulting opinion of Barnard women. I’m not saying this is a majority of Columbia students, or even very many Columbia students—only that even one student who calls Barnard women “dummies” or other inaccurate and offensive labels as a blanket statement, is one student too many. Equally unacceptable is the acceptance of Barnard jokes—just look at WikiCU, there is a whole webpage dedicated to them. This bad attitude, however minor or prevalent it may actually be, must come to an end
The second problem, though, is paradoxical in light of the first. It is assumed, often enough, that Columbia students view Barnard students as inferior in some way. I cannot deny that some people think this way. The reaction against Barnard that came in the wake of Obama’s announcement serves as testament to this. But just as it is unfair to insult all Barnard women and treat them with an air of superiority from the East side of Broadway, it is unfair to view all Columbia students as Barnard-haters and anti-feminists. I do not believe that most, or even a large number of Columbia students feel this way.
So let us embrace a middle ground. Let us not resort to insults or misapprehensions from either side, and let us become moderates in our attitudes towards each other. Whether Barnard- or Columbia-affiliated, let us isolate ourselves from the extreme viewpoints of either school and not tolerate such behavior. Barnard women don’t like being insulted, and Columbia students do not like being assumed to be insulters. Let’s drop the labels, drop the school barriers, and come together student-to-student, person-to-person.