fed: Columbia's subversive newspaper
info | issues | contact
From the Middle School Issue (Dec 2000):

Bestiality Misconduct
You can Like Your Pets, But You Shouldn't Like-Like Them
Billy Q. Fakename

They say that the best writers burn out at a young age. While Alma Mater has been going strong for almost 250 years, her most recent work shows definite signs of fatigue: the sexual misconduct policy amended by last year's senate has none of the pleonastic snap that most of her earlier charter works have.

It's all well and good for your average state college to have bone-dry declaratory statutes regarding sexual misconduct, but it takes an Ivy like Columbia to write poetry for the occasion. Why say drunk when incapacitated flows so much better? And why define incapacitated when any intellectually curious reader would naturally do it himself?

Critics have assaulted the latest misconduct policy so thoroughly that Alma can't even move on. She remains obsessed with an imperfect work while there still exists so much more territory for her to explore.

What Columbia lacks most prominently are statutes that punish regicide and bestiality. And both simultaneously. How many times during this year alone have monarchs cowered in fear at the bottom of their L-room closets, afraid to even step outside for want of a University code to protect them? How many times has our mascot been forced to do the same? Every day that goes by without a statute leaves another aristocrat and feral cat at risk, so I've taken the liberty of creating a few FAQ lists to address the unspoken terrors that remain on Columbia's campus.

The Columbia University Bestiality Misconduct Policy

Students ask: How does Columbia define bestiality?

The C.U. Bestiality Misconduct Policy responds: If a party of the first part is at a party and proceeds to become a little incapacitated, and if he proceeds to observe a party of the second part containing significant genetic differences, and only if he proceeds to lie with the party of the second part, then the first party has committed an act of bestiality.

Students ask: How significant is "significant genetic differences?"

The BMP responds: Any contact that causes or attempts to cause significant caste crossing is covered under the C.U. Bestiality Policy. Specific examples include April-May GS-CC liaisons, and anything relating to SEAS and something else.

***

The Columbia University Regicide Misconduct Policy

Students ask: How does Columbia define a regicide?

The C.U. Regicide Misconduct Policy Responds: In the event that one party encounters a second party of noble stature, and in the event that the first party proceeds to make the latter party so incapacitated so as to preclude all possibility of improvement, than shall that first party be said to have committed an act of regicide misconduct.

Students ask: How can a regicide be redressed?

The RMP Responds: The first party shall be referred to Dean's Discipline for acts committed against a viscount, duke, or baron. In the event of true regicide, the two sides will be offered mediation in a non-adversarial environment, whereby the incapacitated monarch and the accused party will bring witnesses to testify with no instances of cross-examination on behalf of either side.

Students ask: What determines lack of consent in a regicide?

The RMP Responds: Lack of consent may be inferred from advantage gained by the victim's mental or physical incapacity or impairment of which the perpetrator was aware or should have been aware.

In all fairness, that last answer was quoted from our actual sexual misconduct policy. Problematic as Alma's last creation is, it still shows who can dish out the legalese and who can only pretend. There are times when one can express a delicate point only by combining five clauses in one sentence, and ain't nobody doing that like the Columbia's policy-writing staff poets.


Have something to say? Email the Fed