We got distracted in all the weather-related excitement, but if you did read the Times this morning, you may have noticed a full page ad headed by none other than Lee Bollinger--he became the poster child for academic freedom after protesting a British teachers union boycott of Israeli universities a few months ago, and now the American Jewish Committee is gathering signatures in support of his statement. The ad ran with 286 schools, including some heavy hitters: almost all the City Universities of New York, most major state universities, Princeton, Cornell, Georgetown, the University of Pennsylvania, and dozens of other schools nestled comfortably in U.S. News' top 100.

The interesting part, then, is who didn't make the list. Harvard, Yale, the University of Chicago, Amherst, Williams, Duke, Stanford, and Brown were nowhere to be found. Eighteen other schools--including NYU, Temple University, George Washington, and Johns Hopkins--signed on since the ad ran today, so presumably the silent ones have had a chance to reconsider. And in any case, the story broke at the end of May, which means that the AJC has been scuttling around since then gathering signatures.

What gives?

- LBD