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There was talk of “healing” and “reconciliation,” Wolfe took full responsibility for the imbroglio, choked up in his farewell speech, said love of the university had motivated him to resign, and quoted from the Book of Psalms to boot: “God is our refuge and strength and ever-present help in trouble.” Shades of the Moscow show trials. I’m not exaggerating by much. Fortunately American university presidents don’t get a bullet in the back of the neck, but experience a similar sort of national humiliation.

Consider the list of demands put out by Concerned Student 1950, which were published in the Columbia Daily Tribune. This out for example:

We demand that the University of Missouri System President, Tim Wolfe, writes a handwritten apology to the Concerned Student 1-­9-­5-0 demonstrators and holds a press conference in the Mizzou Student Center reading the letter. In the letter and at the press conference, Tim Wolfe must acknowledge his white male privilege, recognize that systems of oppression exist, and provide a verbal commitment to fulfilling Concerned Student 1-9-5-­0 demands.

You have to love that little touch, “handwritten.” Is that not the perfect turning of the screw? And mind, this note is to be handwritten after he has resigned. It suggests the demands for Wolfe’s shaming are not an indictment of him personally, but an act of revenge on all men born with “white privilege.” Three hundred years of racial injustice would somehow be requited by having the university president subject to ritual humiliation. Not dialogue, or constructive strategies to improve race relations. Not justice. Nothing conducive to health and sanity in race relations. This is the mob speaking. Nothing good ever came from mobs.

Wolfe has company. At Yale University, some minority students have demanded the resignation of administrators Nicholas Christakis, master of Yale’s Silliman College, and his wife Erika, an early childhood educator at Yale. Their crime? They resisted infantilizing students by instructing them on which Hallowe’en costumes might be deemed offensive, and trusted students to decide for themselves. They even suggested students avert their eyes if they were offended. For this Nicholas was mobbed, forced to apologize and may – if certain angry students successfully intimidate the authorities – even lose his job. More road kill on the highway of white privilege.

It’s getting crazier every day on the campuses. A white male has to be very brave – or very dumb – to think liberal credentials and a sturdy office door are enough to protect him from him when the lit match of racism falls on the the dry grass of identity politics. Revolutions always eat their children. It’s good to know there’s a welcome mat out for white men in other professions – like firefighting, the police and the Armed Forces. You know, places where the risk of death is relatively high.

National Post