Wondering What Is Driving These College Protests?

Not just whining by football players complaining about privilege (as if football players can talk about privilege).  From Nov. 12, 2015 Inside Higher Education:

At Vanderbilt, many minority students have in recent days renewed a push for the university to take action against Carol Swain (right), a tenured professor of political science and law, over a column she wrote in January after the terrorist attacks in Paris against the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.

In the January column, Swain asked, "What would it take to make us admit we were wrong about Islam? What horrendous attack would finally convince us that Islam is not like other religions in the United States, that it poses an absolute danger to us and our children unless it is monitored better than it has been under the Obama administration?"

Many students and others said that the column stereotyped all Muslims in a way that was profoundly biased, but the university defended Swain's right to free speech.

In the last week, students started a new petition to have her fired, saying that she engages in name-calling, that her use of the word "Professor" on her Facebook page suggests that she speaks for Vanderbilt and that her biases may lead to discrimination against minority students who are not Christian or straight. (Swain is black, but her conservative political views have angered many black people.)