Smith College police chief Daniel Hect was put on administrative leave after becoming an object of campus hate. Chief Hect’s crime was ‘liking’ (not writing) tweets that fall outside of academia’s ever shrinking zone of toleration. Behold the offending tweets:

“Stay the course Pres. Trump”

“BUILD THAT WALL!!”

“The National Rifle Association wishes you and your family a very Merry Christmas!”

The tweets express opinions that most Trump voters would likely support. And the chief stands accused not of originating these tweets, but of merely liking them on his own personal Twitter account. If you are not familiar with Twitter, know that liking doesn’t always imply support.

The official reason given for Chief Hect’s suspension was, as Smith’s President wrote, because “members of our campus community have voiced a lack of trust” in him. Given the protests, “lack of trust” is quite the understatement. Interpreted in the most favorable light, the students might be worried about the chief’s views on immigration.

Smith College is devoted to the spirit of the sanctuary campus movement within “the limits of federal law” meaning that if anyone in the Smith community determines that a student is in the U.S. illegally we should not tell the immigration authorities unless required to by law. Since enforcing national immigration policy falls far outside of the purview of a small-town college police chief, Hect’s views on immigration are utterly irrelevant to his job. But by (very weakly) associating himself with the offending tweets Chief Hect falls outside of Smith’s Overton window, which gives the range of tolerated opinions one can hold in a given environment.

You can’t intelligently discuss views not in the Overton window because right-thinking people mock, ostracize, and de-platform those who hold such ideas. But by excluding mainstream Republican opinions from consideration, colleges deny their students’ intellectual diversity, and prevent these opinions from having any hope of gaining footholds in many young minds.

The hate against Hect sends a chilling message throughout my campus. Imagine you are a Smith student who supports Trump, his wall, or gun rights. How comfortable would you now be speaking up in class? Even if you know your professor doesn’t punish heresy, you should fear that your fellow students might.

Some on Twitter took what happened to Hect as a reason either to not attend Smith, or to not hire Smith graduates, but this would be a mistake. Many years ago, Smith, a women’s college, became greatly worked up over language that defined all students as female and thus excluded some transgender students. I thought this anxiety over mere pronouns was a harmless but strange peculiarity of Smith culture. Later, when Smith students got extremely concerned about transgendered students’ access to bathrooms, I again thought this was a weird Smith obsession. In truth, Smith is a thought leader among elite colleges and what happens on my campus spreads.

Workers vs. Wokeness at Smith College: Campus Social Justice as a Luxury Good

Sydney. London. Toronto.

QuilletteJonathan Kay

This Hect incident, and the numerous other assaults in academia on people who don’t completely conform to leftist dogma, reinforce ideological purity among professors. A conservative contemplating getting a Ph.D. in the hopes of becoming a U.S. professor would be foolish not to think her political views would greatly diminish her chance of getting professorship. Conservative college employees, furthermore, will take these incidents as reasons to hide.

(Even though I work at Smith College, I can write this article because I’m protected by tenure, a fancy law degree, and a neurodiverse brain that causes me to care less about what people think of me than is the norm. Almost everyone else in the Smith community has far less protection than I do.)

Smith, like most elite colleges, worries endlessly about inequality and classism including on its own campus. It seems deeply ironic that Smith would give some members of its community far more effective freedom of speech than others.