This is an incredibly relevant and pressing problem for me, as I'm going to head to college in a year. Wherever I go, there will not be as much inquiry and discussion as I would like to be exposed to. My main goals are to learn and research; but equally important is learning how to think and defend arguments, and that requires dissent.

"The difference between an exchange of ideas and an exchange of blows is self-evident. The line of demarcation between freedom of speech and freedom of action is established by the ban on the initiation of physical force." - From Capitalism, The Unknown Ideal, in the essay "The Cashing In: The Student Rebellion".

For me college should be all about learning the subject matter that is offered and research. Unfortunately college has morphed today by a minority of students into students bent on revolution. They neither understand or will subject themselves to fact and history of past failed experiments or successful ones in government and business. We have to remember that the Russian Revolution of 1917 was accomplished by less than 5% of the population. Nazi Germany was likewise taken over by a small minority of Germans. For me most of the blame lies at the feet of the administration of the schools. A student should be quickly shown the door if she/he acts in a less than a polite manner when people come to speak to them. To disagree is American, to shout a person down is to be shown the door. Any rioting whatsoever should be a permanent dismissal from the school. And by the way I think that tenured teachers should be stopped. A teacher is only worthwhile if they actually teach and not try to overthrow the system. If they want to overthrow the system let them enter into elections.

The incident in question reminds me of one that happened at Yale University in, I believe, 1978. William Shockley, who once set up a sperm bank for the intellectually gifted, received an invitation to speak. And after students raised an uproar, the administration withdrew the invitation.

Similarly, an employee of the Ernest and Julio Gallo winery was scheduled to hold a Wine and Cheese Night at one of the residential colleges (Davenport College, for any Elis reading this). Students disrupted the event, even to taking over the piano and banging out some labor-movement marching songs on it. Then the Dean of Davenport arrived and told the guest to leave. He subsequently told the Yale Daily News, "I supported the demonstrators, and would have joined them had I been a student."

That's what college was like, even in the Ivy League, as long as forty years ago.

More merde from the NYT.
2 to 1 the author hasn't read The Bell Curve.
Instead of any actual first hand analysis, he spews review comments of other biased liberals to justify the reactivity of the equally ignorant demonstrators (and to irrationally convict Murray of a racial bias that he never exhibited.)
He chides the students for the way they reacted, but can't set an example to be followed.
He's a liberal. Can't be bothered with reason, ethics, or rational thinking.

People want simple rules to live by and defend them violently. Previously it was religion. Muslims may still be behaving this way. Now it is this violent progressive, pretend liberalism.

People like mobs of like-minded people to lose themselves in and avoid the need to think objectively.

The "modern" college system is doing students a great disservice by preparing them to live in a world that does not exist.

20 years ago the nation was in a lull... Business was good, jobs paid well. We did suffer down sizing "right sizing" and phony "quality circles" but those were internal. The USA was not involved in a major overseas action. The liberation of Kuwait and the sanctions and No-Fly Zones imposed on Iraq were non-controversial.

I did try to debate on behalf of Saddam Hussein, a secular socialist in a world of religious fundamentalists, but hardly anyone answered back. Ho-hum.

For some reason, post-9/11, once the adrenalin euphoria of revenge wore off and the wars wore on, the protestors came out. They went back in when President Obama continued those same wars. Now, they are out again. It is not so much the policies as the party of the President that they dislike.

I just bought Tyranny: 20 Lessons from the 20th Century by Timothy Snyder. I heard him interviewed on "All Things Considered." The book is all right - I will review it in a couple of days - but I cannot help but asking if he would have written it if Hillary Clinton had been elected.