Wall Street Journal:

Many of the steps Columbia is now promising should have been made long ago in its own best interest. Restricting masks means rule-breakers have to take responsibility for their actions. Clear rules—clearly enforced—about time, place and manner restrictions on campus speech will raise the cost for those who want to block speakers they dislike.

The school will also incorporate into formal policy the definition of antisemitism recommended by Columbia’s own Antisemitism Taskforce last year, which makes you wonder why it hasn’t already. And it will adopt so-called institutional neutrality “institution-wide.” This means the school itself, and presumably academic departments, won’t take sides on political controversies of the day.

This principle is associated with the University of Chicago and is being adopted by much of academia. The test will be whether it is enforced throughout the institution. All of these reforms will be controversial only among those who think a university is an ivory foxhole from which to launch political movements or indoctrinate students.