BY HANK REICHMAN

So now it’s come to burning books!  The following account comes from The George-Anne, an independent student newspaper at Georgia Southern University, in Statesboro, Georgia:

Students at Georgia Southern University burned a book, written by a New York Times contributor, after a Q&A session at her lecture became heated.

Jennine Capó Crucet is a Latina author, associate professor at the University of Nebraska and graduate of Cornell University. Her novel Make Your Home Among Strangers was used as required reading in some FYE [First-Year Experience] classes. The book follows a Hispanic girl, inspired by herself, who is accepted into a prestigious university and struggles in her new predominantly white atmosphere.

Crucet spoke at the Performing Arts Center Wednesday night and after she talked about the book, followed by some personal anecdotes, she opened the audience up to questions.

“I noticed that you made a lot of generalizations about the majority of white people being privileged,” one respondent said into the microphone. “What makes you believe that it’s okay to come to a college campus, like this, when we are supposed to be promoting diversity on this campus, which is what we’re taught. I don’t understand what the purpose of this was.”

Crucet immediately responded to the student with audible reactions from the audience.

“I came here because I was invited and I talked about white privilege because it’s a real thing that you are actually benefiting from right now in even asking this question,” Crucet said. . . .

That night a video of a group of white students burning the book was posted on Twitter:

so after our FYE book’s author came to my school to talk about it… these people decide to burn her book because “it’s bad and that race is bad to talk about”. white people need to realize that they are the problem and that their privilege is toxic. author is a woman of color. pic.twitter.com/HiX4lGT7Ci

— elaina⭐️ (@elainaaan) October 10, 2019

Other posts of the book with its pages torn out followed.  Some of the book-burners apparently gathered outside Crucet’s hotel.  Video of the talk was then removed from the web and a subsequent event today involving the author was cancelled:

“I met some very amazing, brilliant students at @GeorgiaSouthern tonight,” Crucet said later in a tweet.  “Many of them were the ones disrupting the aggressive & ignorant comments during the Q&A.  At the signing, we hugged & cried.  I‘m happy to know them and also legit worried for their safety.”

This afternoon Russell Willerton, Chair of Georgia Southern’s Department of Writing and Linguistics, released a statement on Facebook:

The Department of Writing and Linguistics at Georgia Southern University is dismayed and disappointed by the uproar against author Jennine Capó Crucet, who visited Statesboro last night.  Her book, Make Your Home Among Strangers, depicts a young Latina woman’s challenges in navigating the world of higher education at a majority-white, selective college.  The barriers that minority students face at majority-white colleges and universities are well documented.

The book was featured in First Year Experience classes.  Last night’s discussion with the author devolved into accusations of her demonstrating racism against white people.  Some students burned copies of Crucet’s book and even gathered outside her hotel.  We assert that destructive and threatening acts do not reflect the values of Georgia Southern University.

Our department values stories and how they reflect parts of the human experience. We also value discussion and debate of important issues from all sides and perspectives.

We regret that Crucet’s experience in Statesboro ended as it did. We call on students to remain civil in disagreement, even on difficult issues, and to make Georgia Southern University a place that we all can feel proud to represent.

John Lester, Vice President for Strategic Communications and Marketing at Georgia Southern, responded to The George-Anne in an email. “While it’s within the students’ First Amendment rights, book burning does not align with Georgia Southern’s values nor does it encourage the civil discourse and debate of ideas.”

Well, I guess book burning is a form of expression and hence the book-burners were in a sense exercising their First Amendment rights.  But I wonder whether those who repeatedly wring their hands about a campus “free speech crisis” when a few student protesters shout down — or just peacefully protest — racist and misogynist speakers will be equally agitated by those who burn a minority speaker’s book, leading to the cancellation of further events?  I wonder what, for example, CNN commentator Fareed Zakaria might say.  He’s the one who declared that “conservative voices and views are being silenced entirely” and that “an attitude of self-righteousness” is leading to “the ideas we find offensive” being drowned out after students at Notre Dame protested — but did not disrupt — a speech by Mike Pence and graduating seniors at Bethune-Cookman University turned their backs on Betsy DeVos.

To be sure, we can’t make too much of this event, as such instances are, as Jeff Sachs pointed out on Twitter, still rare.  Nonetheless that could soon change in the age of alternative facts.  Be prepared.