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1. Duke University/Columbia University (tie): After spending 14 years in a federal prison for bombing the U.S. Capitol in 1983, Laura Whitehorn lectured at Duke University where according to the Durham Herald Sun she advised the students, "It's easy to do a bombing." Meanwhile, at Columbia, Professor Gayatri Spivak delivered, in flawless academic drivel, the following rationalization for suicide bombings: "Suicidal resistance is a message inscribed on the body when no other means will get through. It is both execution and mourning, for self and other."

2. University of Mississippi: During celebrations of the 40th anniversary of desegregation at the University, racist graffiti was found scrawled on the dormitory doors of three African-American students. One University Police official threatened that the students responsible would be prosecuted for "criminal charges, possibly a felony, or it could be a federal offense." One month later, the punishment was ratcheted back to community service hours and therapeutic "reflection papers" when three African-American first-year students confessed to inciting this campus storm.

3. Georgetown University: If racist graffiti at Ol' Miss warrants fifteen-page "reflection papers," what is the proportionate punishment for killing a fellow student — a ten-page reflection paper and counseling? Georgetown meted out this "stiff" punishment to the student responsible for the February 2000 death of sophomore David Shick. Ruled a homicide,
Shick's death occurred after a drunken altercation with other Georgetown students. U.S. Attorney Wilma Lewis declined to press charges, implying that Shick's role in the fight may have precluded a conviction. Georgetown kept the case largely secret (even from the victim's parents), invoking the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, until results of the legal authorities' investigation were released to the public in December 2002. Shick's parents sum up the appalling nature of this tragedy: "Is it any wonder that colleges and universities do not want to disclose how they deal with violent offenders on campus? The climate of secrecy...allow[s] colleges and universities to manipulate the process in order to preserve their reputation." Such light sanctions ultimately beg the question: "What does one have to do to get ousted from Georgetown?" The next time a student is found with hard-core narcotics, or caught plagiarizing a senior thesis, Georgetown is going to have a tough time making a case for expulsion.

4. Cornell University/University of California at Berkeley (tie): Demonstrating "a commitment to affirming women's sexuality," Cornell's Gannett Health Center has decided to sell vibrators to students. And after winning a Campus Outrage Award last year for funding the criminal ethnic separatist student group, MEChA, Berkeley still hasn't learned the consequences of allocating student fees to radical student groups. The U.C. Berkeley Queer Alliance receives $9,000 in student fees, which the group uses to maintain an online message board on which students discuss campus locations where they can engage in illicit sexual activities. The group has also drilled a series of "glory holes" in Berkeley's bathrooms to encourage these trysts. Though the University Student Code of Conduct outlaws "conduct which threatens the health or safety of any person," Berkeley has done nothing to moderate the group's website.

5. University of North Carolina—Chapel Hill: The Durham Herald Sun reported that UNC associate professor Martha Lamb was pressured to resign after several students accused Lamb of making them feel uncomfortable by creating a hostile learning environment. Lamb's crime? During a lecture to her students she observed that in the 1960s she heard the comment made that N.A.A.C.P. was an acronym for "Niggers Ain't Acting Like Colored People," but, Lamb continued, today one would rarely hear such a remark. All 16 students attempted to or dropped her course in protest for Lamb's benign historical reference. Lamb ultimately resigned.