The peculiar belief of college administrators that their special authority exempts their campus from the laws that apply to the unwashed is bad enough. But what of the mere professor who believes that, of all places in the nation, his classroom is sacred?  A University of Illinois-Urbana prof learned otherwise.

Erik McDuffie, professor of history and African-American studies at the University of Illinois.

A hunt for a stolen cellphone at the University of Illinois has triggered a debate about when campus police can enter a classroom.

Triggered? The question of how a college chooses to deploy its campus police may well be a subject of debate, but the question is not whether they “can” enter a classroom. There is no debate: any damn time they please. Whether they should may well be a different question.

But then, why would this be an issue?

The Oct. 10 incident has been magnified by tensions over police treatment of minorities across the country as well as racial incidents reported during the presidential campaign and its aftermath.

Are the UI campus police engaging in unconstitutional “stop & frisk” tactics? Are they killing unarmed minority students? Are the campus cops screaming “build the wall”? What could these campus police be doing that has anything to do with racial incidents or the presidential campaign?

On Oct. 10, two UI police officers went to an African-American studies class at Lincoln Hall to track down a stolen cellphone they had traced to the classroom.

After speaking with the professor, they talked to his students and found the phone, which had been bought by a student in the class from an individual thought to have stolen it about 10 days earlier. The student was not arrested.

So no one harmed. No one arrested. A stolen cellphone located and, aside from the momentary disruption of the prof’s fiefdom, life goes on. And this “triggered” something?

But the professor, Erik McDuffie, was upset that police interrupted his class for a relatively minor incident, saying it created unnecessary fear for him and his students. Given high-profile deaths of black citizens at the hands of police, he said, “lots of people on campus, lots of people of color, are scared.”

Whether McDuffie thought this was sufficiently serious or relatively minor is an interesting metric for the police to consider. it was likely serious for the person whose phone was stolen, even if it didn’t mean much to McDuffie. But then, the countervailing consideration is what brings that peculiar perspective back into play.

The presence of campus police “created unnecessary fear for him and his students?” “Lots of people of color are scared”?  Of what? What have these horrifying campus police done to create this fear? Granted, students (and apparently their fragile professors as well) are afraid of a great many things that defy any actual explanation, but does free-floating fear alter the manner in which police are authorized to do their job?

Well, apparently so at UI.

The campus senate approved a wide-ranging measure Monday calling on University of Illinois leaders to reaffirm their commitment to a campus climate “free from hostility, aggression and acts of hate,” with clear sanctions for such incidents.

The resolution, which drew a large crowd to the senate’s meeting at the Illini Union, also directs the campus to review “best practices” for campus police and other law-enforcement officials, particularly situations where they enter classrooms.

If you’re struggling to grasp the connection between campus police locating a stolen cellphone and “hostility, aggression and acts of hate,” you’re not alone. But the college Senate offered its considered explanation.

The measure cited the “growing vulnerability” of various groups on campus, including immigrants, people with disabilities, international students and faculty, blacks, and other underrepresented groups.

It cited “incidents of aggression, hatred, and intimidation” aimed at those groups following the election of President-elect Donald Trump, who has pledged to tighten U.S. borders and deport illegal immigrants. Undocumented students are facing uncertainty about their status, and potential changes in U.S. border and visa policies could affect visas for international students and faculty, the resolution said.

What these issues have to do with each other isn’t just a fascinating mystery, but one raised by the bold senators who raised the same question.

Some senators argued against mixing those issues with concerns about campus police.

But supporters argued that it was important for the senate to lend its voice to the debate before the presidential inauguration, fearing quick action by Trump on immigration.

Insanely irrational conflation, compounded by that peculiar narcissism that could only exist in higher ed? Not when your professors rationalize it.

They also said the incidents are not unrelated. Undocumented students are worried about police coming to their classrooms or dorm rooms to check on citizenship status, professors said.

“I have students who are afraid to come to class,” said Gilberto Rosas, a professor of anthropology and Latino studies. “They need to hear from this body that they belong.”

One might hope that academics would quell irrational fearmongering rather than validate it, but that isn’t what’s happening. That students, and the academics who are supposed to be the grown-ups, have come to believe that their irrational fears trump law is neither new nor surprising. The disconnect of reality from their feelings has become a staple on campus, so why would they believe otherwise?

On the bright side, not everybody at UI suffers from the delusion:

UI System President Timothy Killeen said “definitional and legal questions” would prevent campuses from becoming sanctuaries from immigration enforcement.

“As a public institution of higher education, we must uphold state and federal laws,” Killeen wrote in the letter emailed to faculty, staff and students.

“We cannot declare our campuses as sanctuaries, as the concept is not well specified and may actually jeopardize our institution,” he said in the letter, also signed by System Executive Vice President Barb Wilson and chancellors at each campus.

“However, we will continue to do everything we can within the law to reassure, support and protect our students. Let us be clear … that includes our undocumented students.”

Notably, nobody seemed to remember that somebody had a cellphone stolen, but then, in the grand scheme of things kids are irrationally afraid of, who cares about a cellphone? Better to let go of the stolen cellphone than strike fear in the hearts of children.