BUZZ
ANALYSIS: Says it failed in its mission of ‘punch-up’ humor — jokes about ‘people and systems in positions of power’
Remember why comedian Chris Rock said he no longer will do his act on college campuses? Ditto Jerry Seinfeld?
This is why: Columbia University has a “satire” student paper called The Federalist. Its masthead claims it’s the Ivy’s “only newspaper that doesn’t use performance-enhancing drugs,” and its “About” section says the paper was founded by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch and “loves to piss off the Columbia Spectator.”
Its current articles include “The John Jay Shitter: Fecal Matter as a Kind of Resistance,” “Columbia Reassures Students Hacked Data ‘Hasn’t Changed Much Since It Was Last Leaked‘,” and “Columbia Dining Replaces All Fruit with Wax Fruit.”
But the paper recently pulled a piece titled “I Lived It: Before We Had Sex, My Boyfriend Said a Land Acknowledgement” because apparently there are some things that simply cannot be made fun of.
A post on The Federalist’s Instagram page from earlier in the week notes the article “upset many members of the Columbia community and handled a sensitive topic rashly and irresponsibly: the important recognition of the native land Columbia University and much of our country sit on.”
We take full accountability for the weight of our harmful words, and we thank Columbia’s Native American Council, as well as other members of the community, for bringing this to our attention. We deeply apologize for any harm this article caused, and we are taking this moment to refine our humor guidelines to ensure that our mission of satire does not hurt communities and voices that should uplifted.
In a moment like the one we are currently living in on a campus like ours, political satire is more important than ever, and we would like to reaffirm our commitment to uplifting marginalized voices in this endeavor.
Columbia’s “satire” paper — which rushed to (unfunnily) mock Charlie Kirk’s death in the hour after his assassination — thinks joking about performing a land acknowledgment before sex is a bridge too far.
— Nikos Mohammadi (@NikosMohammadi) September 30, 2026
A joke in the worst way. pic.twitter.com/5fuH4x2CPq
The post goes on to claim the paper strives for “punch-up humor,” meaning jokes about “people and systems in positions of power.” The land acknowledgment piece was a “fail[ure] in this mission.”
“We deeply apologize to our readership, the Native American community, and anyone else we may have offended or caused harm to,” the post concludes.
Given that the paper is a humor publication, various people wondered if the apology itself was satire. The College Fix asked just that via email, but did not receive a response.
MORE: How political correctness drove away comedians from campus
