Two weeks ago at Middlebury College, Charles Murray needed a safe space — literally.

In a significant escalation of the campus speech wars, protesters hooted down the conservative scholar in a lecture hall and then roughed up a Middlebury faculty member escorting him to a car.

The Middlebury administration commendably tried to do the right thing and stand by Murray’s right to be heard, but was overwhelmed by a yowling mob with all the manners and intellectual openness of a gang of British soccer hooligans.

The students who brought in Charles Murray framed the evening as “an invitation to argue,” and in that spirit asked Professor Allison Stanger, a Democrat in good standing, to serve as Murray’s interlocutor. When chanting students commandeered the lecture hall, Stanger and Murray repaired to another room for a livestreamed discussion.

Protesters found the room and pounded on the windows and pulled fire alarms. When Murray and Stanger exited at the end of the livestream and headed for their getaway car, protesters assailed them. They shoved and grabbed Stanger, who was shaken up and later went to the hospital, and pounded on the car and tried to obstruct it. She was recently diagnosed with a concussion that she suffered during the liberal beating by Middlebury students.

Stanger wrote afterward that she “feared for my life.”And for what offense? Talking to someone who thinks differently than the average Middleburg faculty member or student.

Allison Stanger invited Charles Murray, famous for The Bell Curve, to speak at the school. Students were so outraged Murray had to flee for his life, and Stanger got beaten up. Her response?

It’s Trump’s fault!

There’s nothing like a little violence to focus the mind. I am the Middlebury College professor who ended up with whiplash and a concussion for having the audacity to engage with the ideas of Charles Murray, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

Though he is someone with whom I disagree, I welcomed the opportunity to moderate a talk with him on campus on March 2 because several of my students asked me to do so. They know I am a Democrat, but the college courses I teach are nonpartisan [Uh huh].

Most of the hatred was focused on Dr. Murray, but when I took his right arm to shield him and to make sure we stayed together, the crowd turned on me. Someone pulled my hair, while others were shoving me. I feared for my life. Once we got into the car, protesters climbed on it, hitting the windows and rocking the vehicle whenever we stopped to avoid harming them. I am still wearing a neck brace, and spent a week in a dark room to recover from a concussion caused by the whiplash.

President Trump has… [characterized] Muslims as terrorists and dehumanized many groups of marginalized people. He declared the free press an enemy of the people, replaced deliberation with tweeting, and seems bent on dismantling the separation of powers and 230 years of progress this country has made toward a more perfect union. Much of the free speech he has inspired — or has refused to disavow — is ugly, and has already had ugly real-world consequences.

It is obvious that some protesters made dangerous choices. But with time to reflect, I have to say that I hear and understand the righteous anger of many of those who shouted us down. I know that many students felt they were standing up to protect marginalized people who have been demeaned or even threatened under the guise of free speech.

During the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, student Red Guards forced professors to make self-confessions. This situation was clearly different, however, as most of the students were not Chinese.

Stanger is smart. She doesn’t have to deal with Donald Trump at her school, but she does have to deal with her fellow leftist faculty members and leftist students. She’s trying to make kissy-kissy with them so they don’t smack her in the head again.

If I were in her position, I’d probably do the same thing. On the other hand, Vermont is a concealed carry state, so maybe there could be another option when faced with a life-threatening leftist mob.

Exit question:

1) When someone goes to an emergency room with throbbing head pains and a hardcore leftist worldview, how can an E.R. doctor determine whether the patient has a head injury or simply a very rigid ideological point of view? – American Thinker

So in summary, the leftist professor who’s made it her mission to indoctrinate Middlebury students, is now blaming President Trump because those same students she encouraged to think and behave like leftists, behaved in a way that is compatible with how leftists behave.  Using  violence and threatening behavior to get your way and drown out the opposing voices is nothing new for leftists, they’ve just taken it a significant notch since Obama took office 8 years ago.