As I recalled earlier this week, basketball great Charles Barkley famously disavowed his own autobiography, claiming that he had been “misquoted” in it. Sir Charles (or someone) aptly titled the autobiography Outrageous! The Fine Life and Flagrant Good Times of Basketball’s Irresistible Force.
Sir Charles came to mind in connection with the statement circulated by Columbia College dean Josef Sorett late last week. Commenting on the Washington Free Beacon story reporting his running text messages with university administrators revealing what they were thinking during a May 31 panel for alumni on the Jewish experience at Columbia, Sorett made himself sound like a bystander rather than a participant.
In an email to Columbia’s Board of Visitors Sorett claimed that the mocking text messages he exchanged with his colleagues did not “indicate the views of any individual or the team.” Sorett apologized for the “harm” the exchange caused and pledged that “it will not happen again”—though he did not acknowledge his own texts were captured in the exchanges. “These texts are not emblematic of the totality of their [sic] work,” Sorett said.
To adapt the joke featuring Tonto and the Lone Ranger, “What you mean ‘they,’ Kemo Sabe?”
Since then, the Free Beacon’s coverage of the administrators’ text messages during the panel on the ordeal of Jews at Columbia this past spring has been impacting…, as Drudge used to put it. On June 20 Eliana Johnson (my daughter) reported that Sorett placed his three texting colleagues on leave pending an investigation. Eliana drily noted the anomalies:
A Columbia spokesman said the school had no comment regarding why Sorett, who took part in the text exchanges, was not placed on leave or on the propriety of Sorett making the announcement that his colleagues are under investigation. Likewise, the spokesman declined to say who would conduct the investigation, to whom the results would be reported, and whether the results would be made public.
Can you imagine how Sorett’s conversation with his colleagues went down? It must have been like something out of Blazing Saddles: “We’ve gotta protect our phony baloney jobs!”
Yesterday Eliana and Free Beacon reporter Aaron Sibarium turned up the heat on Sorett. With a little help from their source, they extracted one of Sorett’s previously unreported text messages during the panel discussion: “‘LMAO’: Dean of Columbia College Mocked Hillel Head in Newly Obtained Text Exchange.” Subhead: “Josef Sorett has sought to distance himself from leaked messages that are now the subject of a university investigation. The latest text message shows his participation in the affair.”
What you mean “LMAO,” Kemo Sabe?
Seeking a comment from Sorett, the Free Beacon then sent reporter Jessica Costescu to Sorett’s Morningside Heights apartment. What happened next? Sorett called the cops (both Columbia’s and the NYPD). Costescu observes yet another anomaly: “Sorett’s willingness to call the police to protect him from a reporter comes four years after he signed a 2020 faculty letter calling to ‘defund the NYPD by $1 billion.'”
The Free Beacon also obtained Sorett’s email message to the Columbia Board of Visitors yesterday afternoon. In it he appears for the first time as a participant rather than a bystander: “I deeply regret my role in these text exchanges and the impact they have had on our community. I am cooperating fully with the University’s investigation of these matters. I am committed to learning from this situation and to the work of confronting antisemitism, discrimination, and hate at Columbia.”
When it comes to the Free Beacon, of course, “Sorett did not respond to a request for comment.” A Columbia spokesman was somewhat more forthcoming. A Columbia spokesman said Friday that Sorett “will be recused from all matters relating to the investigation while continuing to serve as dean of the College.”
In a related editorial, the Free Beacon has issued an APB: “Wanted: Adult supervision at Columbia.” A wrecking ball might be more like it.
