“majority of the punishments appear to be probation”

In March of this year, a mob of students at Middlebury College in Vermont stormed into a talk by sociologist Charles Murray. After shutting down the event, the mob chased chased down Murray and ultimately sent a professor who was assisting him to the emergency room.

Since then, the school has claimed twice that students were being disciplined but refused to release details about any punishment. Now we know why. There wasn’t any.

Scott Jaschik reports at Inside Higher Ed:

No Suspensions Seen at Middlebury More than two months after Charles Murray visited Middlebury College and was shouted down there, the college has finished reviewing and in some cases punishing students who were involved in preventing him from giving his talk. The college punished a total of 67 students for their (varying) roles in what happened during Murray’s visit to campus. A majority of the punishments appear to be probation. Some of the students received “official college discipline,” which is more serious than probation but does not involve suspension. Middlebury on Tuesday announced the completion of its review process. The college also announced that the Middlebury Police Department (as in the Vermont town, not the college) “had concluded its investigation into the violence that took place following the event as Murray and Professor Allison Stanger left the building. The department said it has been unable to identify any specific individual responsible for the injuries sustained by Stanger. MPD also said it had established that as many as eight masked individuals were in the area and used tactics indicating training in obstruction.” While the department said that “it had identified a number of other people who were in the crowd of more than 20 people outside the event venue, on consultation with the Addison County State’s Attorney it was determined that there was insufficient information to charge any specific person who participated in damaging the car or interfering with or blocking the car’s progress as it exited the parking lot.”

Charles Murray and others have responded to this on Twitter. From Twitchy:

Speaker shouted down. Professor seriously injured. Middlebury says “Naughty naughty” to 41 students. Writes it down for 26 others. pic.twitter.com/Vy9vBqlkUO — Charles Murray (@charlesmurray) May 24, 2017

A disgrace. An utter disgrace. Middlebury ends disciplinary process with no serious punishments. Assault unpenalized https://t.co/oeJsbRv10U — Robert P. George (@McCormickProf) May 24, 2017

@McCormickProf @PhilipTerzian Told you so. I NEVER expected any other outcome. — Terry Teachout (@terryteachout) May 24, 2017

@charlesmurray Sorry , but not shocked, they didn’t have the courage to actually punish the barking mad bullies. — IronHeaver (@IronHeaver) May 24, 2017

@charlesmurray I called it months ago. Middlebury does precisely nothing, which is implicit permission for the same behavior to happen in the future. — Tom Sutpen (@woadscrivened) May 24, 2017

@charlesmurray I’m feeling better about my son’s “transfer” from college to the Marines. — Gerald Hasty (@GeraldcHasty) May 24, 2017

@GeraldcHasty I’d feel great about it from the get-go. — Charles Murray (@charlesmurray) May 24, 2017

What happens next time? Double secret probation?



