If ever there were a "hot seat" upon which a major university president could sit, it would undoubtedly be between Harvard law professor Lani Guinier and NAACP legal defense fund head Ted Shaw. As two of the country's top civil right's scholars, and as two people profoundly troubled by, and conversant in, the state of diversity and affirmative action, it would take a slick legal-type with civil rights cred of his own to emerge unscathed--especially from at panel entitled "The Future of Diversity: A Discussion on Affirmative Action," which was held last night at the Schomberg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem.

PrezBo fits the description, but he still found himself having to strike a very fragile balance. The man wasn't named the #24 person who's screwing up America for nothing--he's the precedent-setting public face of affirmative action, even if he rejected the idea that race is any better an indicator of "diversity" than class or even geography during his opening speech. But he presides over the same kind of monolithic, exclusive institution his co-panelists so vehemently criticized. Shaw, for instance, argued that true diversity was limited by the white establishment's inability to see race from the perspective of minorities. Guinier spent most of her presentation explaining how institutions have to be diverse at their "core," and how peripheral diversity (e.g., the superficial "differences in phenotype" achieved through affirmative action) helps insulate and protect higher education's exclusionary center. Both identified the basic misunderstanding of race on the part of entrenched whites as a crucial social and institutional hurdle.

In which CML recapitulates this weekend's football game, and shares the lesson of promising mediocrity.

Early this Saturday morning, the Columbia football team arrived in scenic Providence, Rhode Island for their final game of the season. They were greeted by a jolly bear reminiscent of the old Smoky ad campaigns, a large cadre of stoners bedecked in outdoorsy brown-and-red uniforms that called themselves the Brown Band, and a small, slightly dilapidated stadium that exuded a bucolic and woodsy charm. In short, it felt like summer camp.

Two hours later, the beginning of the contest was consummated, the parents drove off, and the Lions found themselves in terra incognita, with hardly a friend or familiar soul around (besides a few hundred fans).

Homesickness. The natural response to the Lions' loneliness was for them to withdraw further into themselves, and withdraw they did. While the offense participated in camp activities unenthusiastically, cobbling together an uninspired string of three-and-outs, the defense didn't show up at all, instead languishing inside the cabin as Brown marched to two quick and uncontested touchdowns.