U2 at Fordham.

As some of you have may have already heard from various sources, U2 came to Fordham yesterday to perform a few songs from their latest album for Good Morning America. Many Fordham students apparently camped out all night to guarantee spots in the audience for the early morning performance. I can't really call myself a fan of U2, though I appreciate the concern that the band's members have shown over the years for various humanitarian causes. I also suppose that the U2 visit will also help boost Fordham's national profile, which can only be a good thing.

Given my lack of devotion for the band and my unwillingness to sacrifice a good night's sleep to camp out on Edwards Parade to ensure a spot in the audience, I did not attend the concert. The scholastics who did attend say that they had a great time, and I'm glad for them. The event was meant to be limited to Fordham students, staff and faculty, but a story in today's New York Times makes it clear that a few intrepid gatecrashers managed to get in:

On Fordham Road, among the residents headed to subway and bus stops, five women — who looked generally disoriented — searched for the next campus entrance. They had already been turned away at several spots, they said.

The women said they were hairdressers from Grand Rapids, Mich., and had come to New York City on vacation because they heard U2 was playing at a college in the city, to be televised on "Good Morning America."

“We heard it was a free concert — we didn’t know you needed ID to get in,” said one of them, Liz Jones, 28. “We’ve tried begging, pleading, jumping the fence. We can’t get in.”

They approached Officer Richard Black, who was posted on Fordham Road.

“Please, can you get us in?” Ms. Jones said.

“Look where they put me,” Officer Black said. “Do you think I could get you in? I can’t even get myself in.”

The women tried a different entrance and told the security guards there: “We don’t have any weapons. You can strip-search us.”

The guards declined, and the women tried the next entrance. They heard a roar go up from inside the campus, and one of them, Felicia Duron, 24, grabbed the fence and groaned. Finally, at the campus entrance at Bathgate and 131st Street [sic: it's actually 191st], near Finlay Hall, they approached the security guard and once again asked to be let in.

“Where ya’s from?” he asked, looking them over.

“Michigan,” they intoned, in unison.

He paused, looked at them and said: “O.K., I’m going to turn my head now. I didn’t see anything.”

They whooped and ran in, and headed toward the grassy quad in front of Keating Hall, where the band was playing for several thousand students, faculty members, alumni and campus employees.

When I read the above bit this morning in the NYT, the first question that came into my mind was, "What's going to happen to that security guard when his boss reads this story?" I then thought, "What, if anything, should happen to him?" There's more than one way to answer that question, and I suspect that different readers will come to different conclusions. Still, I wonder what answers the people in charge will have to offer. AMDG.