Thank you're like such a great gentle. We should make you the president of Columbia University.

I mean Michelle's repressive society. It's going to look very different out there everywhere, not just Columbia.

From New York Times opinion, I'm Michelle Cottle.

I'm Ross Dauthett.

And I'm Lydia Polgrain.

And this is a matter of opinion.

And this is a matter of opinion.

Sadly,

our beloved Carlos is out this week and Ross has a filthy head cold.

Nevertheless, we will press on.

This just means that Lydia and I will have to talk extra, which should be exciting because today I want to talk

about the college protests that are taking place across the country.

The situation has gotten quite political on and off campus, and it's getting increasingly contentious.

So I want to get everyone's thoughts on what the lasting effect of these campus protests

is going to be for academic institutions and more broadly, just for

our politics. But to kick us off, I want to get down into the weeds on the campuses. And

Lydia, you spend a lot of time reporting on the protests

at Columbia last week so you want to tell us what you saw?

Yeah I have sort of an unusual vantage point on this whole situation. I just happened to be at

Columbia two weeks ago. I was speaking at a class the day that the president of

Columbia, Manous chiffic, decided to call in the NYPD. I saw the encampment, you know, it was a bunch of kids hanging out chanting

various slogans, none of which seemed particularly utray to me, but I, you know, was sort of stunned to see an hour later that they had decided to bring in the NYPD.

...