President Laurie Patton said disciplinary action against students involved in “acts of disruption and violence” would follow the investigation into what occurred inside the college hall where Charles Murray’s speech was drowned out Thursday evening.
Murray, a social scientist and author of the controversial book “The Bell Curve,” moved to another location where his comments were broadcast online. Fire alarms were set off in an unsuccessful attempt to stop that broadcast.
Some students and faculty objected to Murray speaking, calling him a “pseudo scientist” who espouses racist views under the guise of research.
Middlebury police, Patton said, will separately investigate allegations that a protester pulled the hair of Middlebury professor Allison Stanger, injuring her neck and sending her to the hospital, as Murray was being escorted through a group of protesters to a car after the event. That investigation could result in criminal charges.
In a campuswide letter calling for accountability and rebuilding the community, Patton sounded bewildered and disappointed by Thursday’s events. She said the campus “feels different than it did before” and called what happened “an extremely difficult episode,” particularly after recent efforts to reaffirm the importance of diversity.
Patton also expressed optimism. She called the episode an opportunity to grow, which she said would take hard work and an ability to “listen differently.” She said the college remained committed to bringing controversial speakers to campus.
Murray, in a piece published Monday, gave his version of Thursday’s events and applauded “the backbone and determination that Middlebury exhibited.” He praised the college’s decision to hold the event despite opposition, as well as Patton’s willingness to give opening remarks and the college’s creation of a backup plan. He said he sympathized with Patton as she sorts out the disciplinary actions.
He likened some of the protesters to Nazis and said that when they confronted him on the way to the car he feared for his safety.
Here is what Murray said about taking the stage:
“I stood at the podium. I didn’t make any attempt to speak — no point in it — but I did make eye contact with students. I remember one in particular, from whom I couldn’t look away for a long time. She reminded me of my daughter Anna (Middlebury ’07) — partly physically, but also in her sweet earnestness. She looked at me reproachfully and a little defiantly, her mouth moving in whatever the current chant was. I’m probably projecting, but I imagined her to be a student who wasn’t particularly political but had learned that this guy Murray was truly evil. So she found herself in the unfamiliar position of activist, not really enjoying it, but doing her civic duty.”
Murray went on to describe some of the other protesters:
“Some were just having a snarky good time as college undergrads have been known to do, dancing in the aisle to the rhythm of the chants. But many looked like they had come straight out of casting for a film of brownshirt rallies. In some cases, I can only describe their eyes as crazed and their expressions as snarls. Melodramatic, I know. But that’s what they looked like.”
Without an adequate disciplinary response to the events, Murray said, he worried the Middlebury episode “could become an inflection point” that results in fewer colleges being willing to invite anyone controversial, which he said would have negative consequences.
“If this becomes the new normal, the number of colleges willing to let themselves in for an experience like Middlebury’s will plunge to near zero. Academia is already largely sequestered in an ideological bubble, but at least it’s translucent. That bubble will become opaque,” Murray wrote.
He also raised concerns that “intellectual thugs” will take over. Murray said one troubling difference Thursday was that in the past, those in attendance who wanted to hear Murray speak out of curiosity usually eventually would shout down the protesters, reminding them they were in the minority.
“I am assured by people at Middlebury that their protesters are a minority as well. But they are a minority that has intimidated the majority. The people in the audience who wanted to hear me speak were completely cowed. That cannot be allowed to stand,” Murray said.
“A campus where a majority of students are fearful to speak openly because they know a minority will jump on them is no longer an intellectually free campus in any meaningful sense,” he said.
An anonymous email on Saturday from a group who said they were Middlebury students challenged much of the Middlebury school administration’s version of events, in particular the protesters’ confrontation with Murray after the event.
Patton warned that the investigation into whether students were protesting appropriately or violated the school’s code of conduct would take time. It was not clear who would conduct the “independent investigation.” School officials did not respond to questions seeking clarification Tuesday.
“Our process must be fair and just. To be clear, I want to state that peaceful, non-disruptive protest is not only allowed at Middlebury, it is encouraged. We all have the right to make our voices heard, both in support of and in opposition to people and ideas. Our concern is acts of disruption and violence, where available means of peaceful protest were declined,” Patton said.
On community-building, Patton encouraged robust discussion and keeping open lines of communication, even between those who disagree with one another.
“We have much to discuss — our differences on the question of free speech and on the role of protest being two of the most pressing examples,” the president said.
She called her faith in the school “unshaken.”
“I want to acknowledge the anger and frustration that many people feel. There is hard work ahead for all of us: learning to be accountable to one another, and learning to stand in community with one another. We must affirm our shared values and goals and hold each other to them, and we must listen differently, helping others to be fully heard and seen,” Patton said.
A group of professors and students have also piped in following the event with a statement of principles they want the college to follow.
They include:
— Genuine higher learning is possible only where free, reasoned, and civil speech and discussion are respected.
— Only through the contest of clashing viewpoints do we have any hope of replacing mere opinion with knowledge.
— The incivility and coarseness that characterize so much of American politics and culture cannot justify a response of incivility and coarseness on the college campus.
