I took a look at the topics covered by Hum 110. I would say it is solid and has some degrees of global perspectives as well.
Silent protest in a classroom is not appropriate because a college class is not a public event or space open to all. A class, even a lecture section, is for students enrolled in the section. Technically, I’m not allowed to have people not enrolled in my section even be in the room. "Silent’ protest is intimidating and distracting for the professor and for the enrolled students. Even an enrolled student in the class who engages in “silent protest” is violating the student code of conduct and interfering with the education of others.
There is a time and a place for protest and the classroom/lecture hall is not it.
Of course, enforcing rules against “silent protests” gets into a lot of gray areas. For example, suppose a student enrolled in the class frequently shows up wearing a shirt with political slogans on it (and the school’s dress code does not have a general prohibition on that) but otherwise acts like any other student in the class. Then suppose a group of students does so in a coordinated fashion, sitting together in a row with coordinated shirts with political slogans on them. Etc.
Hum 110 was born in a time when the world was more Eurocentric, though the course has become somewhat more inclusive recently. Reed has always been tolerant of outliers; these freshmen are bucking that, unwilling to tolerate gradual change.
The writer of the Economist piece has a followup article about Reed in Spiked-Online.