Columbia University Gets a Lesson in Property Rights

The Wall Street Journal reports:

Columbia University is one of New York's largest landowners, and perhaps the one with the most to gain from the state's power to seize private property. But in a surprise ruling in early December, a state court struck down the city's attempt to take private land in West Harlem and give it to the university. Now that case is becoming an important beachhead in the fight over eminent domain.

An institution such as Columbia, which employs and preaches hostility to markets and contracts can be a reliable advocate for theft of property through the political process.