In the spring of 2014—in retrospect, the dress rehearsal for cancel culture—some commencement speakers around the country were disinvited or withdrew themselves from consideration owing to left-wing protests. I wasn’t among them. A few faculty members at Seton Hall University tried to have my invitation rescinded on the grounds that I wasn’t what they meant by “Catholic”—progressive. They failed. I delivered my address as scheduled at New Jersey’s Meadowlands Arena to some 6,000 graduates, families and friends, and was awarded an honorary doctorate in humane letters.

It was a thrilling event. I enjoy talking to students. I teach graduate students and young professionals, and I founded an organization that helps mentor hundreds of women involved in journalism and media, many of them right out of college. Those experiences probably explain why I had never been the object of protest by students.

But 2023 is light years from 2014.

[I don’t blame Eberstadt at all for the impulse to cancel her event under the circumstances, but it is a surrender. She let the mob intimidate and/or repulse her from speaking. That will inevitably embolden the mob the next time out. If campus culture is to change, then academics have to lead that charge. They can’t abdicate that to Ben Shapiro. — Ed]