There’s always something untoward going on on campus: there are outrages against common sense, morality, and good taste, and all of it gets inordinate attention because college kids have always gotten attention since they were swallowing goldfish.

But the harm they do is minuscule in comparison to that done by those who have the power, and therefore believe they have the right, to suppress unpopular opinions and punish unpalatable dissent.

Students don’t prolong unwinnable wars or stage coups to overthrow constitutional democracy; they don’t defraud investors with bitcoin Ponzi schemes; and they don’t pulverize the homes and children of civilians and then count it as collateral damage.

They do annoy their professors, bedevil administrators, enrage alums, drive their parents to distraction, and offend the general public. But it is the job of faculty to help them back into line if we think they’re doing real damage to the values we are called to live by as a community of scholars and students. Sometimes we do a better job; sometimes worse.

However, it is absolutely not within the purview of spineless members of Congress who vote to overturn the results of legal elections and are deathly afraid of criticizing a would-be autocrat for fear of incurring his wrath. Chief among these is, of course, Elise Stefanik (R. - NY). How dare she presume to condemn anyone for a lack of “moral clarity” when it is so abundantly clear she has no moral compass of her own?

Prof. Peter Scotto, Mount Holyoke College

South Hadley