Columbia University presents an extreme case of the rot infesting our major institutions — elite organs of higher education, corporate America, the mainstream media, the entertainment business, the legal profession, the teachers’ unions, and so on. We can learn from Columbia’s extremity. It highlights elements of the phenomenon that otherwise remain beyond our view.

The rot at Columbia runs through the students, the administration, and the faculty of the university. Yesterday a group of Columbia professors held a rally Monday to express solidarity with the pro-Hamas/anti-Semitic students suspended for holding unauthorized protests on campus and to lambaste university president Minouche Shafik for cracking down on them. They called for Shafik’s resignation. In an ideal world, they would all resign and the students would be expelled.