Charles Murray: Fecklessness at Middlebury

After rioting at Middlebury injured a professor, here's what President Laurie Patton decreed (per Charles Murray):

In the end, the board took disciplinary action against 74 Middlebury students. Most received probation, which means that they will face more serious penalties if they violate these policies again.

No, Dr. Patton. They faced no penalty for this offense. “Probation” at Middlebury doesn’t mean a weekly meeting with your probation officer and random drug tests. It just means a temporary mark on your record that is expunged if there is no further violation. A slap on the wrist? Not even that.

A few, who took an especially prominent role in the episode, received what we call ‘college discipline,’ which places a letter in their permanent file noting their infractions. Because students often must disclose such information in applications to graduate programs and employers, it is a serious penalty, with potentially long-term consequences.

Serious penalty? Dr. Patton could write that with a straight face? Being involved in the protest will be a plus in the eyes of the admissions committees for many graduate programs. Employers? Most won’t notice, some will be amused. No one is going to say “Oh, we can’t hire this person. He was in a student protest a few years ago.”

Here's what should have happened:

Video of the protest in the lecture hall has already identified many students who were in flagrant violation of Middlebury’s policy, as stated by both Bill Burger and me at the outset of yesterday’s lecture. They are hereby suspended for the rest of the term. The administration will seek out additional video evidence and suspend all other students who can be identified. The fact that some students will not be shown on video and thereby escape punishment cannot deter the administration from acting against students for whom the evidence is clear and unambiguous.

As of this morning, Middlebury College is cooperating fully with Middlebury and Burlington police in their efforts to bring criminal charges against those who committed assault and battery against Bill Burger, Allison Stanger, and Charles Murray, with special attention to those who injured Prof. Stanger. Any students who can be proved to have been among the protesters who committed those assaults and attacked the car carrying them away from the scene will be permanently expelled, regardless of the specific role they may or may not have played.

And because of feckless enablers like Patton, these riots will happen again until they are ended by counter-violence.  But by then places like Middlebury will have been destroyed as educational institutions..