That she is being investigated by her university is the latest illustration of the fact that free speech on campus requires vigilant defenders if it is to be conserved going forward.

Predictably, this case has exposed inconsistencies on both the left and right. Some leftists who believe hate speech is not free speech have been conspicuously silent. And insofar as I’ve seen, there is no outcry from micro-aggression monitors taking Jarrar to task for holding a woman morally responsible for the actions of male members of her family, or pointing out bygone atrocities that counsel against using “witch,” of all things, as a label for a woman one holds in contempt.

Meanwhile, on the populist right, some outlets that complain endlessly when the left tries to police speech on campus have published articles calling for Jarrar’s appointment to be terminated.

Typically, this would be the part in an article about a controversy of this sort where I would grant that critics of the speech in question are understandably upset; make it clear that I myself find the speech in question to be offensive; and explain why I nevertheless oppose targeting the speaker’s job for expressing it, whether in service of First Amendment rights or a culture of free expression.

Most of that holds in this case––I’m against punishing Jarrar, and in agreement with those who say that her behavior is grotesque, immature, and embarrassing (even if I find it exceedingly easy to simply grimace and move on).

But I am increasingly convinced that ending our analysis of these recurring free-speech dustups there lets another sort of damaging behavior go unremarked upon.

As an example, consider the Fox News opinion piece, “Professor celebrating Barbara Bush’s death deserves to be fired,” by Lauren DeBellis Appell, “a freelance writer in Fairfax, Virginia” who is probably a good, often thoughtful person. Yet despite offering no information about Jarrar beyond her ill-advised tweets, Appell characterizes her as “a radical and heartless university professor” and a “sick, twisted individual.” She asked readers, “Does this English professor assign her students to write filth like this, and give them bonus points for swearing? How on Earth did she get to be an English professor, anyway?”

This is a common mistake made by participants in social-media pile-ons: They erroneously assume a person’s character and competence can—and ought to—be accurately judged by the most ill-advised words they post on social media. Rather than spend any time or effort investigating whether or not the offending remarks are actually reflective of typical behavior or indicative of work performance, they write articles in which they fixate on and amplify that worst moment while treating it as all one needs to know about a person.

That is irresponsible. Social media brings out the very worst in many people. Fixating on and amplifying their worst is a choice. Extrapolating from it is often inaccurate.