“WE ARE BRINGING IN EXPERTS TO TALK ABOUT WHAT WE CAN BAN:” The inevitable reaction by the University of Oklahoma after two students made an Instagram-type video where one of them put black paint on her face and used a (weirdly garbled) racial slur. The students, of course, “will not return to campus.” This foolishness must stop. There is one way to get people to stop being racist or doing racist things, and that is to convince them that it’s wrong. Black musician Daryl Davis has convinced 200 actual KKK members to quit the Klan by, get this, actually talking to them. How many racists will be persuaded they’re wrong by OU’s efforts to “ban what we can?” 200? 100? Will there even be a single one? Would banning one of your opinions convince you it was wrong?

I misspoke. This isn’t foolishness. This is cynical political and PR calculation pretending to be a sincere effort against racism. The best that can be said of OU here is that it hasn’t gone the full David Boren collective punishment route this time. Yet.

UPDATE: Well, this guy clearly has to resign as Governor of Virginia now. Right? If you think he shouldn’t resign, but that the OU student also should not be “returning to campus,” I implore you to think about what that says about OU’s response to the video.