Students at Obama's alma mater feel snubbed over politics

President Barack Obama has offered to deliver the commencement address at Barnard College and his alma matter is a little irritated about it.

From the Columbia Spectator, Columbia University's student newspaper (emphasis mine):

“I’m shocked and happy that Barnard will get to have Obama speak at their commencement,” Udell said. “I’m quite disappointed, of course, that President Obama spoke to our sister school, instead of his alma mater.”

Donia Abdelaziz, CC ’12, said that women’s issues are as pertinent to Columbia students as they are to Barnard students.

“As a Columbia woman myself, I find it disappointing that he wouldn’t have thought to bring these issues to his alma mater,” Abdelaziz said.

Udell speculated that Obama has not spoken at Columbia either because he had a “poor experience” here or because “speaking at an Ivy League university is not a particularly politically advantageous thing to do.” But considerating [sic] that Obama is speaking at the country’s most selective women’s college, Udell said, it’s more likely that “he just really didn’t like Columbia.”

“It’s hard for students not to read this as an explicit rejection of the school that he went to,” Rui Yu, CC ’14, said.

h/t the Atlantic