The open minds and bleeding hearts of Ohio’s Oberlin College were astir this week when someone went marauding in Ku Klux Klan garb near the school’s Afrikan Heritage House.
Were students in danger?
Was the South rising again?
Oberlin President Martin Krislov didn’t waste any time finding out. Instead, he canceled classes Monday, ordered up a school-wide “teach-in” and led a “unity rally” against racism.
Within 24 hours, the police who had been called to the scene suggested that the elusive Oberlin Klansman was someone walking about wrapped in a blanket against the chill. Even so, he or she managed to shut down a college of nearly 3,000 students.
In another age, Oberlin was a key stop on the Underground Railroad and the first US college to regularly admit black students, decades before the Civil War.
It was an abolitionist school that took ideas seriously and stood courageously for its beliefs. It was an evangelical beacon that saw its charge as standing apart.
Today, the school has become just another politically correct American college campus, where each new day brings a fresh excuse for a protest rally.
True, there had been a string of ugly incidents there in weeks prior: Someone had scrawled swastikas and racial slurs in public. The question is whether the responses by college officials these days encourage or discourage such behavior.
Once upon a time, Oberlin made a reputation for itself by challenging the oppressive orthodoxies of its day. Now it enforces them — with drum circles, group hugs and a fainting couch.