A horrible Supreme Court ruling in 2005 continues to yield ugly consequences.
In a 5-4 ruling that year, the court's liberal majority said government may seize private property from one owner and hand it over to another owner. Local and state governments have repeatedly used that power to take private property and have it redeveloped by other private interests into upscale housing, stores and such that will bring in more tax revenue than they were getting from the rightful original owners.
But that turns the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution on its head. The amendment does provide for government to take private property in some cases, but only with just compensation and only for a legitimate "public use" -- such as a military base or a road. It was never intended to allow property to be forcibly taken from one private owner and given to another.
In a troubling case based on the bad Supreme Court ruling, a court in New York state has declared that the state may seize property from unwilling landowners and hand it over to private Columbia University to expand its campus.
Whether the campus expansion is a desirable use of the land is beside the point. It is clearly not a true public use envisioned by the Constitution, but rather a private development. As such, the only way Columbia should have been permitted to acquire the land was by offering to purchase it on the free market. If the owners were willing to sell, so be it. If they were not, they should not have been forced to do so.
The high court twisted the meaning of the Fifth Amendment with its ruling allowing this sort of taking.
On a related note, current Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan has been vague in answering questions about abuses of government's power to take private property. She should clarify her views before the Senate votes on her confirmation.