The editor-in-chief of Middlebury College’s student-run newspaper, responding to an apparent wave of criticism over his decision to run a photograph of conservative author Charles Murray on the paper’s front page, recently posted a profuse and rambling apology regarding the “jarring” decision.
“Students of color,” editor Ethan Brady wrote, “feel that Charles Murray’s rhetoric poses a threat to their very humanity.”
It has been over a year since Murray last stepped foot on the Middlebury College campus. Last March, his speaking appearance at the college turned violent when a mob of protesters first shut down his public appearance, forcing him to hold his discussion inside a secure studio, and later pursued him and a female professor when they tried to leave the venue.
Brady’s apology, however, makes no mention of Stanger.
Regarding Murray, Brady insisted that running his photograph was “not meant to troll, or to cause pain, but to ask how that protest still lives with us today, one year later.”
“For many, this image is burned in our collective memory,” Brady added. “As much as we try to distance ourselves from that moment, we are made from it.”
Brady noted that a “heated debate” ensued inside the The Middlebury Campus newsroom over whether to run Murray’s photo, with “most of the section editors, and the managing editor,” maintaining that “running the photo would be inappropriate.”
“Though I deeply respect the input of my editors, I decided to run the photograph anyway,” Brady wrote. “I take full responsibility for this decision. It was mine alone, and any criticism should be directed at me alone.”
The photo at the center of the controversy features Murray standing next to Stanger, just prior to the moment when protesters successfully forced them to hold their talk inside a closed setting. Days later, Murray chimed in on Brady’s “apology” via social media:
How about confronting that the woman in the photograph you can’t bring yourself to name suffered a concussion and a neck injury that she still lives with? https://t.co/Xs8ZpxfkEkpic.twitter.com/iNxNiGKE7W
Additional Middlebury Campus coverage marking the anniversary of Murray’s appearance includes a report noting that despite the conservative author’s visit, applications to attend Middlebury College increased to a “record high” level.
Murray has encountered protests at various college campuses ever since the 1994 release of his book The Bell Curve, in which he and a Harvard University psychology professor sifted through data as part of an attempt to determine the way environmental factors and genetics affect human intelligence.
The Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled Murray a white supremacist.
