Witch-hunt at Columbia?

I was sure witch hunts went out in the fifties, with communists, Joe McCarthy and Edward R. Murrow puffing on a cigarette.

But there are voices at this University who seem all too eager to prove that they are alive and well and have a new target: Columbia athletes. Just so that this pituitary case could come here, those voices say, nine deserving applicants wound up with a "Thank you for applying, unfortunately..." letter.

And then, with a patronizing tone born out of too many head-on collisions with high-velocity dodgeballs, they scoff, "Athletes must cope with the stigma of not being good enough in the classroom, while also playing in front of empty stands all season."

There are at least 11 athletes I would like them to meet. Yesterday, the Ivy League announced its Academic all-Ivy team and selected 10 Columbia student-athletes who have distinguished themselves both on the field and in the classroom. Earlier this month, a men's soccer player and two-time Academic all-American was also rewarded for his achievements over the past four years with an NCAA postgraduate scholarship.

As for the rest of the athletics community, which regularly faces a barrage of raised eyebrows and distasteful snickerings, they aren't here by accident either. Coaches may be accused of pulling more strings than a carpet weaver, but there are certain criteria that no batting average, shooting percentage, or lap time can eclipse, namely the Ivy League's Academic Index (AI).

For the past 20 years, AI has been a determining factor in the admission, or indeed rejection, of prospective student-athletes. It factors in SAT score, SAT II average score, and class rank or high school GPA and assigns a number to each applicant. The maximum possible AI is 240, with 171 being the lowest end. Below that, Ivy League schools are simply not allowed to admit a recruit, short of a compelling, non-athletic reason.

Since no such hard boundaries exist for "regular" students, as some like to refer to non-athletes, it is then conceivable that of two students of similar academic standing-slightly below the level equivalent to an AI of 171-the athlete could lose out to the non-athlete. The non-athlete's legacy status, for instance, could tip the scales of "compelling non-academic reason" while the athlete only has sporting achievements to show for herself.

Furthermore, the academic index keeps tabs on a school's entire athletic population. The average AI of all non-football athletes is compared to the four-year average AI of the school's student body and the athletes' AI must be within one standard deviation of the school's mean AI. A quick thought back to a high school statistics class and you realize that, on a standard bell curve, this means the athlete average must lie within approximately 34 percent of the student body average.

Down with the argument that the Athletics Department always has some wool handy to pull over the Admissions Office's eyes also goes the point that athletes aren't repaying Columbia's generosity by not winning. First, I would like to highlight this season's Ivy champion women's soccer team and men's and women's fencing teams. Second, even if there were a debt to repay, I don't think the countless hours spent on practice fields and in weight rooms just to wear the Columbia jersey can be overlooked.

And of course, there is the eternal question of money. Winning programs attract alumni contributions, but so do losing ones by their very existence. Sports is one of the easiest ways for alumni to stay in touch with the University. I, for one, have never seen professor appointments or guest lectures crawl across my screen on ESPN.

The bottom line is that there is a cultural divide on campus created by a pseudo-elite which has never expressed any interest in knowing about Columbia athletics, but still finds delight in stratifying the campus. Not liking sports is one thing. Starting a witch hunt is quite another.