Free Republic

Faced with the sudden reality that their semesters would likely be ending, many Middlebury students spent their nights before the mandatory Covid-19-related evacuation partying, drinking and vandalizing the campus and town in abundance. Damage has included broken glass, stolen signs, strewn garbage, smashed furniture and windows, and items thrown into trees. Facilities staff are spending the weekend cleaning up messes across campus...

T he invitation from Middlebury College to speak about my book The Demon in Democracy came last year. I was pleased to receive it, as it seemed to indicate that the book resonated in American academic circles. Middlebury was the sixth or seventh university in America to have issued such an invitation since the book appeared in 2016. The Demon in Democracy puts forward the rather strong thesis that, in many important respects, liberal democracy increasingly resembles communism. The argument is complex, but it amounts roughly to the following: Both communism and liberal democracy aim to politicize the whole of...

In light of the ongoing violence on college campuses across the country, Middlebury College is instituting a “heckler’s veto” or temporary policy to shut down speakers whom they believe might be targets of threats or violence. A heckler’s veto is a term used when a government or institution of power shuts down someone’s First Amendment right of free speech to prevent or subvert potential violence that might be unleashed by a heckler in response to what they perceive as disagreeable speech. In layman’s terms, Middlebury is temporarily instituting an infringement on First Amendment rights. Stopping short of a flat-out ban...

If you’re thinking about physically attacking a professor on a college campus at a public event you don’t like, it’s probably best to wear a mask. That’s the moral from Middlebury College’s “resolution” to the riot on campus March 2 when author Charles Murray tried to speak. On Tuesday — 82 days after the fact — the central Vermont liberal arts college announced the end of its “sanctioning process” against students who prevented Murray from speaking in public and then harassed and (possibly) injured a Middlebury professor who accompanied Murray. (More on that in a bit.) It’s jarring enough that...

Middlebury College in Vermont has again announced that it has disciplined students over their behavior during an event featuring conservative author Charles Murray on March 2.The school announced late last month that it had disciplined more than 30 students for their behavior. Now, as then, the school declined to give details about what that discipline looked like. In the latest announcement, the school said that it had, in April, disciplined a total of 41 students.“This week’s cases were heard in a group hearing Thursday night before the Community Judicial Board (CJB) of Middlebury College. The CJB is empaneled from a...

Even lifelong men and women on the Left are becoming concerned about the oppressive political climate on American college campuses. Jonathan Haidt, a psychologist and professor of ethical leadership at the New York University's Stern School of Business, spoke about the roots of campus rage in light of the mob and "heckler’s veto" at Middlebury College and the University California-Berkeley. The Wall Street Journal published the interview, conducted by Bari Weiss, entitled, “The Cultural Roots of Campus Rage.” Haidt warned about this "new religion" of "true believers" in ideology. These believers "have reoriented their lives around the fight against evil,"...

Charles Murray was not met with riots when he showed up to speak at NYU last Friday, as he had been at Middlebury College a few weeks before. Still, his reception hardly served as a model for campus discourse. Security was beefed up, and his hosts, a student group affiliated with the American Enterprise Institute, had to restrict access to the event. A small crowd showed up to protest Murray’s presence — and to hurl insults at attendees and the university itself. In response to what occurred at Middlebury, the speech’s venue was moved to an underground room in...

There’s nothing like a little violence to focus the mind. I am the Middlebury College professor who ended up with whiplash and a concussion for having the audacity to engage with the ideas of Charles Murray, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Though he is someone with whom I disagree, I welcomed the opportunity to moderate a talk with him on campus on March 2 because several of my students asked me to do so. They know I am a Democrat, but the college courses I teach are nonpartisan. As I wrote on Facebook immediately after the incident, this...

On March 2, there was one of those oh-so-revealing events that makes people realize that very bad trends are at work in America, trends that are corroding the essence of civilization. Middlebury College in Vermont is a liberal arts school. The prolific author and American Enterprise Institute scholar Charles Murray was asked to speak at Middlebury and answer questions from faculty and audience members. He is used to confrontations, but could not have imagined how vicious things would get up in the Green Mountain State. Inside Higher Ed’s story on the event explains that college officials admonished the students prior...

At Middlebury College last week, Charles Murray needed a safe space — literally. In a significant escalation of the campus speech wars, protesters hooted down the conservative scholar in a lecture hall and then roughed up a Middlebury faculty member who was escorting him to a car. The Middlebury administration commendably tried to do the right thing and stand by Murray’s right to be heard, but was overwhelmed by a yowling mob with all the manners and intellectual openness of a gang of British soccer hooligans. Sometime soon, we may yearn for the days when college students were merely childish...

Says RBpundit, “See what happens when you give people who call everyone Nazis the license to punch Nazis? They wind up hurting non-Nazis.” Right, but I take it the people who twisted the professor’s neck would say that she became a Nazi by association by defending Murray’s right to speak after being invited. A mob will always justify its violence as righteous.We’re getting closer to the inevitable moment when someone is literally murdered on an American campus because a right-winger tried to speak. As [Professor Allison] Stanger, Murray and a college administrator left McCullough Student Center last evening following...

The protesters who uprooted a 9/11 memorial display at a liberal arts college in Vermont claimed they were defending Abenaki tribal lands and taking a stand against U.S. imperialism.The Abenaki tribe’s response? “Disgusting.”Don Stevens, chief of the Nulhegan Abenaki Tribe, said his tribe did not approve of the actions taken by five people–including one student–at Middlebury College last week. (RELATED: Student destroys 9/11 memorial, citing U.S. imperialism)“We didn’t know anything about this and if we had we certainly wouldn’t have sanctioned it,” he said in a statement to The Addison Independent.The 9/11 memorial display consisted of 2,977 flags placed in...

UPDATE (9/12/13): Here is part of a statement written by Amanda Lickers, the woman Shireman-Grabowski claimed to assist in removing the flags. Lickers says she is a member of the Onondowa’ga Nation, which is a part of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. The statement was posted in an article on the website Climate Connections: yesterday i went to occupied abenaki territory. i was invited to middlebury college to facilitate a workshop on settler responsibility and decolonization. i walked across this campus whose stone wall structures weigh heavy on the landscape. the history of eugenics, genocide and colonial violence permeate that space so...

A 2,977 flag memorial was ripped out of the ground in front of Mead Memorial Chapel shortly before 3 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 11 by a group of five protestors claiming that the flags were on top of a sacred Abenaki burial site. The flags — meant to commemorate each of the 2,977 lives taken in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks — have been posted in the grass between Mead Chapel and the Davis Family Library annually in a joint effort between the College Republicans and Democrats for nearly 10 years. Ben Kinney ’15, president of the College Republicans, spent...

A Unitarian church in Middlebury Vermont has been attempting to induce people to give their guns to the Government to be destroyed for a price far below market value.  From wcax.com: Minister Barnaby Feder says he recognizes that guns tend to sell for much more than $50 online, but that he hopes this incentive will at least make people aware of the option to dispose of firearms. So far no guns have been brought to the police department for cash. I do not see anyone organizing massive protests over this clear Church/State cooperation.   The money has been turned over...