The Woke Wage War on Red State Frats

In the first few weeks of the 2021 semester, without the major media noticing, startling similar protests involving thousands of students have erupted on at least three major state university campuses — the Universities of Nebraska, Iowa, and Kansas. In each case, an alleged sexual assault by a fraternity member has triggered these “largely peaceful protests,” but in no case has the accused been arrested.

Although To Kill a Mockingbird remains among the most read books by college students, the protestors seem to have taken as role model not Atticus, but the racist vigilantes swarming the courthouse. Mao’s Red Guard would envy the students’ collective indifference to due process. A friend who stumbled onto the initial Kansas University protest told me, “It was madness, utter mob justice, a la Mississippi lynch mob, circa 1935.”

The protestors are largely white, female, and naive. Most, I suspect, think theirs is a legitimate protest against a real problem. To be sure, sexual assault is evil and inexcusable.

But then so too is its exploitation. Christina Hoff Sommers has described these anti-male protests as one of “those panics where paranoia, censorship, and false accusations flourish — and otherwise sensible people abandon their critical facilities.”