He works at Williams College, one of those tiny northeastern elitist liberal arts schools that suffers from the low self-esteem of having students who didn’t get into Harvard or Yale, despite their parents’ best efforts.  But Ferentz Lafargue committed his crime at the Washington Post.

In the work that I do as a diversity advocate in higher education, I hear often a concern that some of our efforts in pursuit of equity may be doing students a disservice — that we’re not preparing them for the “real world.”

The implied logic is that if students feel empowered to voice their discontent with microaggressions experienced on campus, then they’re not developing the thick skin necessary to deal with the slights they’ll see in the workplace, out in the “real world.”

Students should “toughen up,” and we should stop “coddling” them, we’re told.

Why he contends that the logic is implied is unclear. It would seem to be remarkably express, flagrant even.  But then, that’s because he used the word “microaggressions,” which foreshadows his next salvo.

I’ve heard these sentiments expressed about the college’s efforts to counsel students against donning offensive Halloween costumes, the distribution of a “Pronouns Matter” pamphlet last fall and in more general discussions about what constitutes a “safe space” on campus.

Fair enough. I’ve heard these “sentiments” expressed too. In fact, I’ve expressed them. So?

To be sure, the real world is full of anti-Semitism, homophobia, sexism and racism. The question is: Do we prepare students to accept the world as it is, or do we prepare them to change it?

Boom. That’s where he committed the crime. Murder. Intentional murder. With malice aforethought, if that’s your preferred formulation.  Ferentz Lafargue just murdered brain cells. Millions of them. He’s a monster. And if he figures he’ll get points in mitigation for throwing in anti-Semitism, think again.

Telling students either explicitly or implicitly that they should grin and bear it is the last thing one should do as an educator. Yet that is essentially the gospel that the “wait until the real world” parishioners would have many of us adopt.

If Lafargue’s complaint was about lynchings, there would be no issue. But that’s not what he’s talking about. He said it, and he’s stuck with it. Microaggressions, those benign words that are spoken without any malevolent intent, but interpreted by the most fragile of teacups as somehow hurtful because their one real skill in life is stringing together jargon gibberish to convert perfectly inoffensive words into the instruments of “outrage.”

Therefore, whether one is suspicious of the merits of college as a whole or cynical about the existence of “safe spaces,” the truth of the matter is that “coddled” college students aren’t the problem.

The real culprits — on campuses and in the real world — are the persistent effects of homophobia, income inequality, misogyny, poverty, racism, sexism, white supremacy and xenophobia.

The real culprits are intellectually-challenged grown-ups who seek to enable their self-serving agendas at the expense of other people’s brain cells.  Lafargue has just confessed.

Is it really a crime for students to express their “discontent” with a world that doesn’t share their notion of what constitutes “homophobia, income inequality, misogyny, poverty, racism, sexism, white supremacy and xenophobia”?  No. This is America, and people can bitch all they want, no matter how silly their complaint.

But that’s not the problem giving rise to these “sentiments” that colleges are not only failing their students, but harming them.  Lafargue provides a clear demonstration of question begging, the logical fallacy of assuming a fact to be true, and then using the assumptive fact to justify the outcome.  Are there problems with “homophobia, income inequality, misogyny, poverty, racism, sexism, white supremacy and xenophobia” in America? Sure. No one has credibly suggested otherwise.

But is “Trump 2016” an “act of violence“?  To make the leap Lafargue would ask of you, that would have to be the case. Students are allowed to express their discontent. So are other students. So are non-students. So are people who speak words that make guys like Lafargue angry about the “homophobia, income inequality, misogyny, poverty, racism, sexism, white supremacy and xenophobia” he finds hiding beneath rocks.

That’s the problem that demagogues and ideologues refuse to face. They’re all for their pedagogy, but only their pedagogy.  They see the violence in microaggressions that others do not.  American isn’t the land of opportunity for some, but it didn’t do too badly by Ferentz Lafargue, who received his Ph.D. in African American and American Studies at Yale University.

What is missed in this soft-pedaled polemic is that not only “marginalized” feelings are allowed, but everyone’s. Not only is it acceptable for students to challenge things they find hurtful, but so too students and others who find their “hurt” infantile.  As for the failure of colleges, it’s the infantile piece that’s not being addressed. Got something that’s real rather than the fantasized “everything’s a problem” outrage? Go for it.

When the complaints are about nonsensical things, microaggressions rather than, you know, aggressions, you will be charged for your thought crime.  But the good news for Lafargue is that there will be no prosecution, no conviction and no punishment for the murder he’s committed. Because that’s the nature of free speech and intellectual honesty, that you are entitled to express views at the Washington Post no matter how irrational and fallacious they may be.  That’s the world of intellectual grown ups, Ferentz.  Maybe some day you’ll join it.