On March 2, Charles Murray, author of the notorious book The Bell Curve, was the object of vigorous protests at Middlebury College, preventing him from speaking at the planned venue. Murray and Middlebury faculty member Allison Stanger, who was to interview him, escaped to a more secure location where they attempted to film the interview. Windows were banged on and fire alarms pulled. In the brouhaha, Stanger suffered minor injuries.
This is just the latest in a series of boisterous college events, most notably the ugly riots at Berkeley inspired by the scheduled speech of flamboyant right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos. The reaction to incidents like these has been nearly unanimous from the political right and left: These coddled students should grow up! Free speech should be honored! The liberal academy is out of control! Political correctness reigns on America’s elitist campuses! Even ardent progressives are saying, “Shame on them! The answer to ugly speech is more speech!”
In response to a New York Times column by Frank Bruni about this event, many readers cited the generally inflamed political climate, urging citizens to settle down. One after another succumbed to the absurd false equivalence that a handful of college students are the equal and opposite problem to President Donald Trump and his merry band of mischief-makers.
So as to avoid needless inflammation of reader sentiments, I acknowledge that I don’t endorse students giving their professors concussions. But the rest of this outrage over political correctness is nonsense. The simmering on college campuses is overdue, necessary … and insufficient. An occasional boil over is to be expected and cannot — must not — be used to silence the voices of a generation that is thankfully waking up.
First, the notion that these college students are coddled is pure fiction. The vast majority of college protests have been in response to racism, homophobia and sexual violence. Many activists in the Black Lives Matter movement, for example, are poor and the first members of their families to attend college. The students standing against racism, homophobia, gender violence and sexual assault are the vulnerable ones. If any students are “coddled,” it is the privileged, usually white, mostly male classmates who find the protests an opportunity to ridicule “social justice warriors” while playing beer pong.
And as to the false equivalence with Trump et al.? A few college students exhibited poor judgment while trying to rebuke a white nationalist. This is tantamount to the assault on free speech being waged by the White House? Legitimate press organizations have been excluded from briefings. Trump lies every day, aided and abetted by toadies like Sean Spicer and Kellyanne Conway. Fox News and Breitbart make up stories that would embarrass the National Enquirer. And folks are concerned that muffling Charles Murray imperils a vibrant exchange of information and ideas? Laughable.
Stanger, in a subsequent Times op-ed, complained that some students and colleagues didn’t even research Murray’s work before protesting his appearance. Our greatest concern is that few college kids failed to properly research a second-rate academic at a time when the White House is presenting “alternative facts?”
No, violence was not the best response to Murray. But this incident is trivial, and we must resist seeing it as an example of “political correctness” or “identity politics.” Both of those phrases are used to dismiss or make a caricature of the very real and important commitment to equity and democracy held by many students on college campuses. Empathy, inclusion and sensitivity to offensive language are hallmarks of politically engaged students across America. If empathy is political correctness, let’s have more of it. The recognition of persistent discrimination is a necessary reminder of America’s wavering commitment to justice, not an immature act of “coddled” students.
Our country has been pressed steadily to the right since the Reagan era. Progress in civil rights has been eroded. Gains made by women have been reversed. Economic injustice is pervasive. Right-wing propaganda has turned our country toward the dangers we now face with an irrational, incompetent president. The denial of human-induced climate change and the turnover of our foreign policy apparatus to Big Oil should frighten any sane human. The campaigns to privatize education and to make health insurance a luxury item only affordable to the wealthy are threats to our very existence as a nation committed to justice for all.
The current situation requires more protest, not less. It requires passion and persistence and, if necessary, civil disobedience. We are not living in polite times and we cannot face the loss of our democracy with a polite shrug.
Yes, a few Middlebury students exhibited poor judgment. But we should applaud the fact that they love our country enough to want to save it.
Steve Nelson lives in Sharon and New York City, where he is the head of the Calhoun School, a private school. He can be reached at steve.nelson@calhoun.org.