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A Howard University journalism professor, Dr. Stacey Patton, has ignited a firestorm after publishing a Substack post telling progressive white allies to look to violent abolitionist John Brown as a model. This was not careful academic hedging or historical analysis — it was an explicit exhortation from a tenured faculty member at a leading institution, and American parents and taxpayers have reason to be furious.
In blunt language Patton wrote, “Be like John Brown,” asking readers to consider “what am I willing to burn so somebody else can breathe,” and insisting that white allies stop asking Black people for permission or instruction. Those lines read less like instruction in civic engagement and more like a cheer for radical disruption from someone charged with shaping young minds.
For those who forget history, John Brown was not a saintly martyr but a militant who led the Pottawatomie killings and the bloody Harpers Ferry raid, actions that resulted in civilian deaths and his eventual execution. Praising or romanticizing that violent legacy from a university podium is reckless and dangerous in a country already dealing with political violence and campus extremism.
Howard University’s communications office rightly issued a brief condemnation of violence while simultaneously invoking First Amendment protections, a predictable dodge that treats speech advocating dangerous ideas as mere opinion rather than a red flag for institutional oversight. The university’s posture exposes the weakness of campus leadership when confronted with radical faculty rhetoric instead of immediate, clear accountability.
Conservative commentators and parents are not overreacting when they warn that this kind of preaching erodes the basic civic norms universities used to uphold — namely, fidelity to law, reasoned debate, and the teaching of history without calls to emulate its worst violent episodes. Colleges that shelter or tolerate advocates of vigilantism have abandoned their mission and deserve scrutiny from trustees, donors, and state oversight.
This episode should be a rallying cry for reform: tenure cannot be a shield for promoting radical violence and campuses must once again be places of learning, not laboratories for left-wing extremism. Lawmakers, boards, and families ought to demand investigations, transparency about faculty conduct, and consequences where rhetoric crosses the line from provocation to incitement — because the safety and future of our communities depend on it.
