MIDDLEBURY, Vt. — An author of a book discussing racial differences in intelligence who was shouted down by protesters at Middlebury College when he gave a guest lecture and was confronted by some of them afterward says he wants the college to sanction those involved.
Charles Murray, who describes himself as a libertarian and social scientist, warned that anything less could become an inspiration for other protests and has the potential “to be a disaster for American liberal education.”
He says when he left the building where his lecture was held last week he walked into “the middle of a mob.”
“If that’s the new normal then why would any college in its right mind allow a controversial speaker to arrive?” he said on Monday. “Because no college wants to go through what Middlebury’s gone through.”
Middlebury police are investigating what happened after Murray’s talk Thursday. A professor had her hair pulled and injured her neck, but Murray was unharmed, the college said.
The college has initiated an independent investigation, college President Laurie Patton said in a letter to the school community.
“Once that work is completed, the college will follow a process of determining a course of action for each individual understood to be involved in some way in the events of last Thursday,” she wrote.
