Critic and social commentator Roger Kimball recently took a detailed look at the race industry.

Some of his analysis included a look at its divisive presence on college campuses today, which included a divisive email and a probable hoax

…Racism, Inc. manufactures only one-way ratchets. That is to say, “all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.” Consider this recent email, dated September 11, 2013, from a professor at Texas Christian University:

At the beginning of the semester I usually like to invite all my white students to get together and discuss the challenges they may face. . . . However, the time slipped by and I didn’t get a chance. So, I would like to ask if you are interested in a get together on Monday afternoon. We can also discuss the exam that is coming up. I don’t mind if this would turn out to be a study session for my WHITE STUDENTS ONLY.

Are you outraged and disgusted by this blatantly racist invitation? Of course you are. Though given that it issued from an institution with the words “Texas” and “Christian” in its name, perhaps you are not surprised. What else can you expect?

Except, that is not exactly how the email read. The professor really did offer an invitation to some, and only some, of his students, and the invitation was race-based. But the original email extended the invitation not to white students, but to “STUDENTS OF COLOR ONLY.” Do you find that your feelings of outrage and disgust are noticeably diminished? Are you busy searching for an explanation, an extenuation, an excuse? Just asking.

In June, I wrote about an episode that took place a year or two ago at tony Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. One night, a racist graffito was discovered on the wall of a student dormitory. Result? Red alert. The president of Williams shut down the campus, cancelled classes, and denounced the “horrifying,” “vile” act. He enlisted not just campus security and the local police but the FBI—the FBI!—to search for the perpetrator of this “hate crime.” The culprit was never discovered. At least his (or her) identity was never made public.

I speculated what campus scuttlebutt had already concluded: that the offending graffito was scrawled not by racists lurking about the ivied purlieus of Williams College but by a member of the “minority community” whose special perquisites depended heavily on a steady diet of racialist provocation. I heard via friends that at least one other college president took grave offense at this suggestion. Not only, he said, did it make light of the racist incident, but the speculation was groundless.

Did it? Was it?