The Lukianoff stiutation was interesting. He was invited to a Master’s Tea months before, so the fact that he was there during the chalking/yelling event was pure happenstance, unless the students set up there at that particular time because he was in the building, which I suppose is possible. The Free Speech Symposium had also been set up well in advance of these events. As far as I can determine, it was really just a weird convergence of opposing players in the Silliman Courtyard that day.
Anyway, the Indian village statement is an interesting one. I read an article somewhere (I think on the Altantic site) where Lukianoff claims he meant it seriously; in other words, the whole E.C. incident pales in comparison to the burning of an Indian village (whether in India or early America doesn’t really matter to his purpose if we accept his statement). However, lots of people think he said it absolutely intentionally, not because he’s racist, but because he was in a symposium on free speech and he was making a point by testing its bounds.
As it happens, my college is situated close to a reservation, so we have a fair number of Native American students (who, as an aside, refer to themselves by their specific tribal identity first and as Indian second, rather than N.A.). I certainly can’t draw generalizations from this one response, but I ran the incident by a gifted N.A. student of mine, and her immediate reaction was, "I see what he was doing. I think that’s brilliant. " But she’s the kind of woman who’s pretty fearless about accosting guys with sexist t-shirts in the hall and asking them if they’ve thought about what they’re doing.
Thanks for re-linking to that article. I hadn’t seen the quote condemning the spitting before. Either I missed it or they added it later–they often add and delete stuff in articles, which is pretty confusing.