Zimmerman then looks back at the Tucker Carlson interview. He notes that Weinstein was asked a total of five questions and points out that none of his answers were particularly inflammatory. What did happen though was a big uptick in the number of people outside the campus bubble who saw what was actually happening at Evergreen:

What Professor Weinstein did, purely and simply, was help the rest of the world see for themselves what was happening on the Evergreen campus. The unedited videos of students screaming at the president, of a faculty member cursing at her colleagues, provide a clear picture of the reality of the situation. Yes, more people became aware of what was happening on campus because Professor Weinstein dared to speak with Tucker Carlson. But if everyone was as proud of the students and their colleagues as they originally claimed they were, greater awareness wouldn’t be a problem – it would be a virtue.

This is the key point. Tucker Carlson himself said toward the end of the interview (see below), “Our viewers should look this up online because there are a lot of pieces to the story, it’s hard to convey on television.” Professor Weinstein didn’t embarrass the students, they embarrassed themselves. People left, right and center saw the videos and found the protester’s behavior unacceptable.

Zimmerman concludes the piece by noting that there were reasonable, rational people on the right who contacted Weinstein after his Fox News appearance to tell him that, while they disagreed with his politics, they appreciated his tone and his approach. Zimmerman writes, “Real connections with people were forged and those connections improved understanding.”

There’s a certain irony in the fact that a faculty heavily engaged in social criticism of all kinds was unable to criticize even the worst behavior when it took place among their own little corner of society. Instead, they attacked the one person who dared to step outside the campus bubble and say what was obvious to everyone else: Something was badly amiss at Evergreen College.