At least one US college is willing to take serious steps to punish left-wing students who shut down conservative speakers.
Claremont McKenna College this week announced disciplinary measures, including lengthy suspensions, against seven students who were part of a mob that blocked an audience from hearing a pro-police speech by Heather Mac Donald last April.
The crowd, spurred on by Black Lives Matter, forced Mac Donald to give her speech via livestream, even as protesters tried to drown her out. It was an outrageous infringement of Mac Donald’s right to free speech — and the right of other students to hear her. It was also another despicable example of what passes for acceptable political protest on far too many campuses.
Claremont McKenna hit three students with full-year suspensions, two with one-semester suspensions and two with conduct probation. It gave deans at other Claremont campuses evidence of violations by their students and urged them to act. Four non-students were suspended from on-campus privileges.
Some say colleges need to expel kids who, in Claremont’s words, breach “institutional values of freedom of expression.” But Claremont’s steps are a far cry from those at Middlebury College, which “punished” students who rioted against conservative scholar Charles Murray and assaulted a professor by issuing a letter of rebuke that didn’t even go on their permanent records.
Fact is, too many colleges refuse to stand up to the increasingly violent campus attacks on free speech. Better for everyone if they followed Claremont McKenna’s lead.