Middlebury Struggle Session The wrong man issues an apology for violent student behavior.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/middlebury-struggle-session-1493075873
By now you’ve heard about the student mob at Middlebury College that roughed up Charles Murray, a visiting speaker and social scientist. The March mayhem ended with Mr. Murray’s faculty escort in a neck brace, but so far the public shaming has been reserved for a professor who dared to promote the free exchange of ideas.
Last week Bert Johnson, chair of Middlebury’s political science department, apologized in the campus newspaper for offering “a symbolic departmental co-sponsorship” to the Murray event “without wider consultation.” It seems Mr. Johnson lent the department’s imprimatur to the invitation to Mr. Murray that had come from a student group.
Mr. Johnson lamented in his statement that his decision “contributed to a feeling of voicelessness that many already experience on this campus,” though anyone paying (or getting subsidized) $200,000 for a college degree and a four-year respite in Vermont is not among America’s marginalized.
Mr. Johnson has since said on Twitter that he intended merely to extend good will, not to walk back his commitment to free speech. And Mr. Johnson is a unicorn on campus for his research on why campaign-spending limits are less effective than allowing more spending and more political speech. Yet his letter does read like a hostage confession to students who had screamed, punched fire alarms and jumped on cars.
What happened to those students? A Middlebury spokesman says more than 30 students have “accepted disciplinary sanctions,” though he won’t offer details. That could mean the dean invited folks to discuss their hurt feelings, when the correct punishment for violence is suspension or expulsion.
Meanwhile, the Middlebury faculty is divided over endorsing free-speech principles that the University of Chicago, Purdue University and others have adopted. The fallout from Mr. Murray’s visit has dragged on for nearly two months, but the drama will continue until the administration decides to restore order, punish offenders and govern the place as adults.
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