IN THE SIXTIES, STUDENT ACTIVISTS KNEW WHAT “VIOLENCE” MEANT: And they weren’t shy about threatening it. On this day in 1969, a gang of rifle-toting Cornell students marched out of the building that they had been occupying for days. The country was shocked by the incident and mesmerized by the photographs documenting it. Donald Alexander Downs tells the story of that harrowing day (and the spineless university leadership that led up to it) in Cornell ’69: Liberalism and the Crisis of the American University.

These days one gets accused of violence for merely disagreeing with students. On the surface that might sound almost comforting. Your right of free expression might be threatened, but surely social justice warriors who are so very sensitive to the power of words that sting would be dedicated to non-violence themselves, wouldn’t they? Well … uh … don’t count on it.