Libertarian

Columbia and Barnard are both known for being politically active campuses. With the primaries in full swing and the presidential election right around the corner, you might be looking for how to get involved with political organizations on campus. Let Spectrum’s list guide you!

When The O’Reilly Factor sent Jesse Watters to Columbia earlier this month to investigate why so many American universities lean to the left, the reaction on campus was a mix of humor and outrage. Watters approached various Columbia students in front of the 116th Street and Broadway gates to ask them, among other things, about professorial bias and safe spaces. A few responded with answers conforming to the portrayal that Watters attempts to paint of Columbia: a school radicalized and bigoted toward conservatives.

In China, where information does not come freely or easily, the banana crop suffered from a supposed "Panama virus" outbreak this past spring. People stopped buying bananas en masse, resulting in a huge fallout in the fresh-fruit market. The news, spread initially through text messages and Internet discussion, single-handedly crippled an entire crop yield. The catch? The "Panama virus" isn't real, only a rumor spread about a fungal infection that tainted some Chinese banana trees earlier in the year. By the time the Chinese government traced the rumor back to an amateur translator in Hainan who'd misread an English news story, word had spread too effectively to be discounted, even in a country with ostensibly rigid media control.