from Thomas Sowell:
Many people seem shocked at the recent savagery of a mob of students at Middlebury College, who rioted
to prevent Charles Murray from addressing a student group who had invited him to speak. They also inflicted injuries requiring hospitalization on a woman from the faculty who was with him.
Where have all these shocked people been all these years? What happened at Middlebury College has been happening for decades, all across the country, from Berkeley to Harvard. Moreover, even critics of the Middlebury College rioters betray some of the same irresponsible mindset as that of the young rioters.
The moral dry rot in academia — and beyond — goes far deeper than student storm troopers at one college.
Frank Bruni of the New York Times, for example, while criticizing the rioters, lent credence to the claim that Charles Murray was “a white nationalist.” Similar — and worse — things have been said, in supposedly reputable publications, by people who could not cite one statement from any of Dr. Murray’s books that bears any resemblance to their smears.
Academia, however, is ground zero in the war against people whose ideas go against the current political correctness. The virtual monopoly of the political left, on campuses across the country, allows all sorts of things to be attributed to people the left disagrees with, irrespective of whether those people have ever said anything resembling what they are alleged to have said.
The professors don’t usually riot against people whose ideas they disagree with, because they can just dismiss those ideas, with some characterization that there is no one on hand to challenge.
