Middlebury College disciplined 67 students for their roles in a disruptive protest of an event that featured Charles Murray, a controversial political scientist, the Vermont college said in a statement on Tuesday. Separately, the Middlebury Police Department said it did not have sufficient evidence to charge anyone in connection with a scuffle that occurred after the March 2 event and resulted in the injury of a political-science professor, Allison Stanger.
Ms. Stanger, who interviewed Mr. Murray in a video studio after his talk was disrupted, wrote in The New York Times that she had suffered a concussion and whiplash after being shoved as she and Mr. Murray were leaving the event. Mr. Murray, who has been criticized for arguing that genetics might help explain the achievement gap between black and white students, was shouted down while onstage. He and Ms. Stanger went to a different room to try to livestream their conversation.
The police department said a crowd of more than 20 people, including about eight masked people who used “tactics that indicated training in obstruction and intimidation,” were outside the building when Mr. Murray and Ms. Stanger were trying to leave. Many of those in the crowd were not members of the college community, a police-department statement said.
The college said its sanctions against the student protesters ranged from probation to official discipline, “which places a permanent record in the student’s file.” The students who received the lightest penalties had participated in the first part of the protest, while 26 students received more-severe consequences for continuing to protest after Mr. Murray and Ms. Stanger moved to other locations.
