Freedom of speech under attack on campuses

More and more, it seems, intolerance of thought has become a major problem where it should least exist: on the campuses of America’s colleges and universities. Match that with a general misunderstanding of the First Amendment and the result is an intolerable atmosphere that aims at the very heart of higher education in our democratic republic.

An instructive example is the recent ill treatment of conservative author and philosopher Ann Coulter at one of the nation’s premier schools, the University of California, Berkeley. Officials first rejected a planned speech by Coulter on the grounds of safety. When a storm of protest ensued, they backed off and offered a compromise that ultimately suited no one. Coulter walked away, leaving the school’s iconic image as the birthplace of the Free Speech Movement of the 1960s badly tarnished.

To disenfranchise a person who has been invited to present ideas simply because those ideas are disagreeable to some, or even to a majority, has no place in the college agenda as long as hate or the promotion of illegal activity are not the speaker’s object. Any attempt to disrupt a legitimate political discourse should be met with the harshest discipline.

Someone should explain that to those who run Middlebury College of Vermont, a private school with a sterling reputation for excellence and freedom of expression. Middlebury College authorities dismissed a violent disruption of a speech by conservative author Charles Murray by 100 to 150 students with a slap on the wrist for 67 of them. It was an almost embarrassing example of the sentence not matching the crime.

Murray, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, was invited by a conservative group to speak at Middlebury last March.

Another group of students objected strenuously on grounds that he had written “The Bell Curve,” a 1994 book that they consider racist because it linked socioeconomic status with race and intelligence. Their answer to Murray’s presence was to shout him down when he tried to speak. When he moved to another room for the talk, the protestors pulled fire alarms in the hallway. When he finished his speech, several masked people appeared and began pushing and shoving him.

A faculty member who was interviewing Murray was attacked and suffered a concussion when her hair was grabbed and her neck twisted. After the faculty member and Murray got into a car, the protestors rocked it and jumped on the hood.

Last week the college finally acted. The students implicated, far from the actual number that participated in the disruption, received punishments ranging from probation to something called official college discipline, which amounts to a note being put in their file. Missing, of course, was dismissal or any other significant discipline for what the college admitted was a clear violation of its rules. Not enough time before graduation, they said.

College president Laurie Patton apologized publicly to Murray and promised the protestors would be held accountable. Obviously, Middlebury doesn’t understand its obligations in preserving free speech or the principles of nonviolent protest — or, even more frightening, the First Amendment.

The Middlebury Police Department issued a statement saying that no one would be arrested from the attack on the faculty member or damage to the car because it was too dark to identify the culprits.

Middlebury should be ashamed of itself. And its vapid excuses for not making lasting examples of these students whose concept of college freedom is so obviously twisted.

This story was originally published May 31, 2017 at 5:02 AM with the headline "Freedom of speech under attack on campuses."