Before Charles Murray was introduced to the student audience, Middlebury President, Laurie Patton, felt compelled to “state the obvious…we are a left-leaning campus.” (Here’s a link that contains the video of Dr. Murray’s reception: http://www.vdare.com/posts/ultra-preppy-college-shouts-down-charles-murrays-talk-on-coming-apart.) Ms. Patton gave fair warning to students involved in shutting down the speech that doing so was against College policy and could result in suspensions. It will be interesting to see what happens in that regard.
But in general, I prefer umpires (and College Presidents) who call balls and strikes without announcing before the game starts which team they prefer to win.
That said, I commend Middlebury professor Allison Stanger, who from a secret undisclosed location on campus conducted the Charles Murray interview with unbelievable grace. Well perhaps it wasn’t such a well-kept secret as students outside seemed committed to shutting things down anywhere on campus by making as much noise as possible. Both car alarms outside the building and fire alarms within were constantly being set off, which made the live video stream difficult to hear much of the time.
I have a freshman daughter at Midd…a Feb. Thus far, her short experience on campus has been very positive. But to this parent, this whole episode was very disheartening!