Update: Victory at last! The 2014 Class Council has received permission to use the lion illustration on their shirts.

Sophomores in Columbia College are shirtless. They’ve been at Columbia for a year and a half, but still haven’t received any special “Class of 2014″ shirts from the Class of 2014 Class Council. Today, the Council explained why the shirts still haven’t arrived in a 900-word letter.

The upshot: Columbia bureaucracy (in this case, Columbia Athletics) is ridiculous. It turns out that Columbia students are not allowed to use any images or illustrations of lions except for the official lion illustration of Columbia Athletics. And this official Columbia Athletics lion may only be used by the Columbia Athletics department or to promote a Columbia Athletics event. Anything else is “brand dilution.”

In other words, Columbia won’t let the 2014 Class Council make shirts with this picture of a lion because they’re worried that you (or an intellectual property judge) will confuse it with this one.

For better or worse, the Council objected to this absurd policy, arguing instead that “the lion, although the mascot of Columbia Athletics, is also the mascot of our University as a whole.” They’ve pledged to continue the fight until the bitter end, even if they don’t ultimately succeed. They know that history will ultimately judge their cause to be right.

And that, Columbia College sophomores, is why you still haven’t received your class shirts.

Check out the Council’s full letter after the jump

The new "My Groups" network

Last night, in the Faculty House’s fancy Skyline Dining Room, representatives of the 89 activist, political, religious, and identity-explorative student groups represented by the Student Governing Board met came together dinner to induct new groups, create an advisory council for the University Chaplain’s Office, and debate whether or not they should merge with the Activities Board at Columbia, which represents 150 other student groups.

The SGB was created in the aftermath of 1968, as a forum for students to discuss the administration. Comprised of representatives from the four undergraduate schools, it is dedicated to preserving to free speech, and promoting politics, humanitarianism, religion, spirituality, activism, by representing student groups with these affiliations.

First on the evening’s agenda was a presentation from the Columbia’s Office of Civic Action and Engagement, the administrative office that advises SGB. A representative encouraged the groups in attendance to use My Groups, a social network Columbia designed that enables people to check out all the different student groups at Columbia, join different groups, and view a calendar with all student groups’ activities (right now ‘Upcoming Events’ only lists the next 20 SSDP meetings).

After this, representatives from the 10 groups hoping to win SGB recognition were given two minutes to make their case to the audience. The SGB executive board had already voted whether or not to recommend recognition for each group, but that decision could be overturned if 2/3 of SGB groups disagreed with the board. As it turns out, none of the recommendations were overturned.

Read on for the rest of the proceedings