MOST OF THE KINDS OF INCIDENTS THE WAPO DECRIES ARE HOAXES, OFTEN PERPETRATED BY MINORITY STUDENTS OR FACULTY. DOES THE WAPO WANT DRACONIAN PUNISHMENTS FOR THEM? Washington Post editorial calls for universities to ‘make crystal clear that racist … speech [is] off-limits.’

If the call was simply to punish threats of violence — racist or otherwise — I’d be all for that; and some of the time, nooses might be seen as threats. But the editorial isn’t limited to that: It calls for administrators to punish “racist … speech” generally. (I assume the editorial must mean punishment, since it’s hard to see what else would “make crystal clear” that the speech is “off-limits.”) This is an editorial, the product of carefully considered labor on the part of a group of people, not an extemporaneous remark; when it says “racist … speech” (especially right after a sentence talking about political advocacy during a presidential campaign), I assume it means what it’s saying.

And the editorial’s proposal is an awful idea. At public universities, it would violate the First Amendment; at private universities, it would violate many of the universities’ stated commitments to open debate, as well as basic principles of academic freedom.

Well, to be fair, the WaPo editorial board shows few signs lately of being particularly bright, or principled, so I doubt this troubles them, if it even occurred to them.

I have noticed that more and more people seem to think that holding or expressing racist views isn’t just bad, but affirmatively criminal.