In his inauguration speech, President Barack Obama made a bold nod to "non-believers." This group of people, before being ostracized from explicit national life, forms one component of the diverse new coalition of Americans that will be joining together under his watch to move this country forward. If you were one of the many proud Columbians gathered out on the plaza on inauguration day, you likely either cheered, or heard somebody near you cheering, when Obama unexpectedly included such a group. With that utterance, those of us who do not believe in God were made to feel a new sense of inclusion, a warm welcome into the arms of the new administration. Yet on the plaza that day, there stood another community who perhaps could still use some feeling of inclusion, informal recognition, and openness extended toward them: the more religious among us, because at Columbia, it feels as if "non-believers" rule. Fox News commentators and many others have amply referred to Columbia as "godless." Like our T-shirts and Facebook groups showing re-appropriated pride from Bill O'Reilly's insult calling us students of the "University of Havana-North," we are even happy to be called "godless." On the "street" here (i.e. College Walk), as in many other intellectual communities, "godless" is "cool." What interests me about this community is, to borrow University President Lee Bollinger's phrase, a "curious disjunction" that one notices. While there exists a certain formal and official openness to a diversity of opinions, backgrounds, and ways of thinking about and acting in the world, there also clearly exists an informal, unofficial bias against—and even benign neglect of­—religion in the mainstream of campus social life. A second disjunction surfaces between the marginalization of some of the communities of very religious students on campus and the way in which religion profoundly but stealthily informs the opinions and actions of a much more significant portion of the student body. By bias, I am not implying a widespread hatred for or prejudice against certain groups. More often than not, when we see moments of religious hatred on this campus (and we thankfully have now gone a long time without one), they happen because of strongly held religious beliefs, not an active rejection of religion altogether. It is more of an informal social bias: the roll of the eyes or the deliberate effort to change the subject at the mention of religion because of the emotional and other baggage that such talk potentially carries. Maybe Columbia gives a "godless is cool" impression to most. But my first impression of the place was a little bit different. I first visited campus during orientation week for the class of 2008. The first Columbia student I ever met was an Asian woman who, just after I had taken my first steps onto campus, asked me if I was interested in Bible study. This woman was one of the many campus religious group representatives who are constantly rejected in the effort to sign up interested new members. Recruiters for religious groups, especially in the Greenpeace man-on-the-street style, force upon students an encounter that many do not want to have when walking through campus in their usual scowl-faced fog. And sometimes these recruiters can get pretty annoying. Those of us with brown hair and large noses do not always appreciate that postcard with a picture of Jerusalem on it, offering us a free trip to Israel and thrust into our hands because of the way we look. Encountering a recruiter for a free trip to Israel or a group that meets every week to talk about God is not an experience that generally figures into the recounting of one's day. Still, many readers of this column probably remember being approached by or deliberately avoiding somebody from a campus religious group sometime recently. Perhaps Columbia is not so godless after all. The ease with which many Columbians ignore, avoid, and wave off those encounters parallel a deeper reluctance to openly engage with religious issues and, in some cases, religious people. I think religion is pushed off the table in many social contexts because it is hard to talk about. An earlier Spectator column claimed that the "useless antagonism" and "petty bickering" that arose between clashing emotional responses in the campus debates over Gaza left activists ineffective, in addition to gridlocking debate. Perhaps with that, we might consider one place from which pointed emotional responses originate: individual political identities, many of which are informed by religious backgrounds. So, along with concern about what is being said in current campus debate, where is our concern with what is not being said? Why not improve our efforts toward openness? For issues that inspire passionate debate and public controversy, let us have the freedom to address religion as one essential component of the vast spectrum of nuanced variations of perspective. If we are committed to understanding the world in which we live, inside and outside of our gates—and committed we must be—the exchanges in which we participate should not neglect religion. We should not be closed to certain topics of discussion on campus because these topics might bring about awkwardness or emotional strain. One such tough topic, highly relevant but highly neglected, will be addressed in this column space throughout the semester.