As you may know, Heather Mac Donald was subject to mob action in beautiful Claremont, Calif. She was to give a talk under the auspices of Claremont McKenna College. She gave the talk, all right. But to relatively few people — because a mob outside the hall prevented others from coming in.
I happened to be a speaker at Claremont, in the same hall, the following week. (The director of this series is wonderful, by the way.) Before the talk, there was a dinner, and a student raised the issue of the previous week’s mob. Should the students participating be expelled? Or would expulsion be too harsh?
In my “California Journal” today — Part II — I write about this. I say,
If you and I prevent someone from hearing a speaker, I think we should be expelled. We should be expelled before the sun sets. Or if the sun has set already, we should be expelled before it rises again.
During the Lewinsky drama, Billy J. drawled, “I believe in a God of second chances.” Maybe the student mobsters should have a second chance, if they leave their mob ways behind and learn a little liberalism (by which I mean toleration and pluralism, not Noam Chomsky).
But I think of all the things that might get a student expelled today. (What if you forget some kid’s pronouns? What if you’re caught reading Bret Stephens and other warmongers?) And my suspicion is that you can get expelled for a lot less than preventing other people from hearing a speaker.