In the past, I’ve written about the insatiable mob at universities around this country that manufactures crises in an attempt to silence free speech and academic freedom on college campuses. But what happens when the mob actually starts making headway in its pursuit for academic totalitarianism? In a nutshell, you have the cases involving the University of Missouri and Yale University.

Earlier this semester at Missouri, the university was caught in a firestorm, facing incidents involving a swastika made of feces scrawled in a residential hall bathroom and reports of Ku Klux Klan rallies on campus.  There were also two separate accusations of racial slurs and threats hurled at black students, one of whom is the student body president.

Since the initial explosion of anger and tension prompted by these cases at the university, we’ve learned that there never were any KKK rallies on campus, as per local police. Just as important, we have neither learned who made the swastika out of feces nor who was behind these racial attacks against the black students, why the person or persons did it or any other evidence or details.  

Yet Concerned Students 1950, an on-campus group named in commemoration of the first year that blacks were able to be admitted to the university, quickly began protesting and demanding that something be done in response to these cases.

They would eventually demand that, among other things, the president of the university, Tim Wolfe, apologize and resign from his post. Why? For not responding to the aforementioned incidents in a way students deemed adequate, leading to the perception that he was not, according to Concerned Student 1950, “‘completely aware’ of systemic racism, sexism, and patriarchy on campus.” In other words, for not necessarily agreeing that one can just generalize and condemn an entire school, with over 35,000 students and over 4,500 staff members, from a handful of incidents. 

Nevertheless, the far-left student-faculty populace at Missouri and their “allies” across the country know, just know, that these cases have to represent what they claim is “systemic racism.”

Social media went ablaze. A graduate student, Jonathan Butler, went on a hunger strike in protest of all the racism he saw. The raucous protests on campus were coupled with the Missouri football team threatening to boycott all football-related activities until the Concerned Students 1950 demands were met. The powder keg of rushing to judgment, assumption and scapegoating was about to blow. Finally, Wolfe capitulated to the demands and pathetically resigned from his position in an attempt to placate the Missouri mob.

Wolfe’s resignation was the first of many demands on their chopping block. Effectively, they now run the school. And their predictable solution to these unsubstantiated, nebulous incidents, committed by unknown people for unclear reasons, is to silence anyone who threatens their “safe space.”

Student photographer Tim Tai understands this firsthand, because after trying to cover a protest on campus soon after Wolfe’s resignation, he was bullied and harassed by a mob of students and by Melissa Click, a communications professor. Professor Dale Brigham understands this firsthand because, after he told students that he was still holding a scheduled exam amid the commotion on campus, students ridiculously cried that taking the test would make them feel unsafe, leading to his resignation.

Soon, all Missouri students will understand this firsthand. Indeed, when the other demands of Concerned Students 1950 are inevitably agreed to and enforced, including things like a mandatory “comprehensive racial awareness and inclusion curriculum,” the University of Missouri will become the testing ground for all other far-left movements that will unquestionably follow, emulate and expand their reach into student and faculty life. As such, you can expect to see microaggressions such as “America is a melting pot” banned at a campus near you very, very soon.

What about Yale? In a nice summary by Roger Kimball in the Wall Street Journal, “the insanity began over Halloween costumes. Erika Christakis, associate master of a residential college at Yale, courted outrage by announcing that ‘free speech and the ability to tolerate offense are the hallmarks of a free and open society’ and it was not her business to police Halloween costumes.” 

Hysterical Yale students responded by calling for the removal of Christakis and her husband, who was also a master at Yale, for not creating “a place of comfort, a home.” What comes next at Yale is still uncertain, but is likely to include resignations, serious restrictions placed on free expression or both.

From these two examples, and many more similar scenarios at Ithaca College, Amherst College and elsewhere, a striking pattern can be seen.

Unlike previous fads in higher education like disinvitation season, an annual tradition where universities invite speakers and honorary degree recipients like Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Condoleeza Rice and Christine Lagarde only to disinvite them when leftist students begin their usual shtick of squealing about how they disagree with them, this trend we’re now seeing is different. This is a new movement, one that sees far-left students leave their protest gear at home in favor of aiming to unilaterally overthrow their superiors in the classroom and in administrative positions to, in effect, dictate school policy.

The difference is key. Often, the commencement speakers that were disinvited were conservative, libertarian or contrarian, which meant that, in some way, they opposed the groupthink on college campuses. Aside from advocating for a modicum of free speech for their opponents, the victims of far-left intolerance now are far-left people who are far-left in every major way.

The indoctrination of intolerance towards dissent and free speech from the professoriate at-large has finally turned on the very people who promulgated these ideas. The chickens have finally come home to roost. The bedrock of higher education, the right to think and speak freely, to learn from others, to understand and argue with people who may think differently, to have a conscience, dies a little more each and every day. 

Brandeis Interim President Lisa Lynch, in response to a protest on campus in support of the students at Missouri, wrote in an email that she “express[ed] [her] support and solidarity with those who demonstrated on our campus” and wished to “move beyond aspirations for a safe and inclusive environment, where community members respect and value the perspectives and contributions of all others, to the actualization of this vision.”

When you subsidize something, you get more of it. Contrary to Lynch’s quixotic idea that somehow agreeing that we need a “safe and inclusive environment” on campus can satisfy the mob, such statements will only embolden them to push onward and extract more concessions. There may come a time where articles such as this will be deemed “unsafe” for those who wish to stem the tide of “racism.” My hope is that I’m wrong. 

But judging by the trends seen at other schools, it’s becoming increasingly clear that it is not exaggeration to say that freedom of speech and academic freedom are now endangered in ways that pale in comparison to the disinvitations, free speech zones and speech codes we’ve seen before. Because when the mob writes the rules, “all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”