A professor who challenged her students' views on sex becomes target for an inquisition

No one expects the Spanish Inquisition, but everyone who lives or works at a college probably should. A Northwestern University professor recently lamented the “intellectually embarrassing” atmosphere of moral panic concerning sex and rape on campus in a column for The Chronicle of Higher Education. Several students who didn’t appreciate her opinion—perhaps it triggered them—responded by filing formal complaints against her with the university’s Title IX coordinator.

Has it truly come to this? Will academics be subjected to heresy trials for daring to challenge their students’ immature, unhealthy, and increasingly dictatorial views about sex and consent?

That seems to be the case for Laura Kipnis, an author and professor of media studies at NU. Her column for The Chronicle documented the cultural and administrative changes made at NU in recent years, ostensibly for the purpose of combatting sexism. Kipnis is not a fan of the changes, which she claims are anti-feminist, infantilizing, and contributing to a culture of fear...