Civility is paramount. It’s also very hard when people really believe in something, especially when they’re young and idealistic. And then there are the fanatics, who are even worse. Mob behavior is scary no matter where it comes from.
But no, we do not have to accept the beliefs of people when these beliefs call for them harming us. That’s basic common sense. That’s why advocating violence isn’t protected speech. And we certainly don’t have to respect hatred.
I also agree that the vast majority of incidents are real.
Those who fabricate incidents throw doubt on all other, real events, but it doesn’t make the actual incidents any less real.
Those people (the “fabricators”) should be required to engage in therapy because I honestly believe you ought to be pretty mentally disturbed to fake an incident.
(This morning on the radio I heard of a guy who’d stabbed himself and claimed it was an antisemitic crime, and I didn’t think ‘the guy is a criminal’, I thought ‘the guy is seriously disturbed’.)
However, in the case of St Olaf, we don’t know what happened. Hopefully the police will get to the bottom of this. As of now, they found the culprit for the April incident and are still investigating the others.
I find that the college is doing things “right”.
Rooting around their website, I (rather easily) found this:
https://wp.stolaf.edu/dii/
Note that the “Freedom Fighter or Terrorist” question is part of the British 9th grade curriculum. They study the IRA and “The Troubles”, then September 11. At the end, they have 4 characters, each presenting a different point of view, and have to find the different ways they’re justified or not. It seemed to me quite challenging at the time, I cannot imagine a class discussion with 14-15 year olds on these topics.