Middlebury: the college where you learn how to assault your professors–and get a slap on the wrist.

Here's the press release from the elite liberal-arts institution in Vermont where the annual tuition alone is $49,648:

Middlebury College has completed the disciplinary process for all of the students who could be identified as participating in disruptive actions on March 2 during and after the scheduled talk on campus by political scientist Charles Murray.

That would be the occasion when a masked mob of screaming Middlebury students prevented Bell Curve and Coming Apart author Murray from speaking and sent Allison Stanger, the Middlebury political science professor who had sponsored his speech, to the hospital emergency room with a concussion after grabbing her violently and pulling on her hair.

[S]anctions were assessed following findings that students violated either or both of the institution’s Demonstrations and Protests and Respect for Persons policies.

Oh, good. Let's see what those sanctions are:

In total, the College disciplined 67 students with sanctions ranging from probation to official College discipline, which places a permanent record in the student’s file. Some graduate schools and employers require individuals to disclose official college discipline in their applications….

Information about individual student sanctions is considered confidential under federal law. Today’s announcement concludes the College’s review and response to the events of March 2.

So we'll never know whether those students got "probation" (for how long, since the school year has already ended?) or the dreaded comfy chair as their Middlebury punishment.  But–oooh!–"some graduate schools and employers" might possibly, maybe, probably not make inquiries. Who knows?

But here's some good news from the Middlebury press release:

Separately, the Middlebury Police Department (MPD) [the town, not the college] today announced that it had concluded its investigation into the violence that took place following the event as Murray and Professor Allison Stanger left the building.

Except maybe not such good news:

The department said it has been unable to identify any specific individual responsible for the injuries sustained by Stanger. MPD also said it had established that as many as eight masked individuals were in the area and used tactics indicating training in obstruction. Further, the department said that while it had identified a number of other people who were in the crowd of more than 20 people outside the event venue, “on consultation with the Addison County State’s Attorney it was determined that there was insufficient information to charge any specific person who participated in damaging the car or interfering with or blocking the car’s progress as it exited the parking lot.”

Oh.

Lesson to be learned here: Always wear a mask while you are beating up on your professors.

But how can you blame Middlebury? The chair of Middlebury's political science department, Bertram Johnson, has already apologized profusely for inviting Murray to speak at Middlebury in the first place. And some 322 professors around the country signed an open letter declaring: "To punish students and to defend Murray is to degrade the meaning of academic freedom and free speech." (No comment from me on that one.)

Those 67 Middlebury students are probably smirking all the way to the comfy chair.