A Brutal Jock At Columbia

Upon arriving at Columbia, furthermore, Nelford insinuated himself into what's arguably the most objectionable stratum of Columbia society: the string of beer-drenched fraternities that befoul W. 114th St. and provide meeting places for legacy kids, arrogant preppies and athletes who?this being Columbia?are ironically often as bad at the sports they play as they are macho, and only sporadically literate liabilities to Columbia's academic reputation. Douglas Montero's column in the Post on Monday contained the following telling passage: "The reporters who visited the frat houses where Nelford hung out saw beer bottles and cans, kegs and empty cups littering floors and tables and piled high in overflowing garbage cans."

In other words, we're dealing here with the lowest of the low?and at one of those schools, moreover, a degree from which basically ensures even the most flamboyant mediocrity a certain level of power and economic success for the rest of his well-connected life. If nothing else, the grotesque Nelford murder-suicide ought to shine light into a dank corner of the culture of what goes around calling itself an "elite university." We wouldn't go so far as to correlate the existence of jock culture with murder. But we do hope that the Nelford case attracts sufficient attention to that culture's ugliness so that the university moves not only to abolish affirmative action for jocks, but also to eliminate fraternities and to act in general like the sort of institution it tells its prospective students' parents it is.