Two Northwestern University thought it would be a real hoot to don blackface for Halloween. Reaction on the campus and beyond ranged from justified indignation and shock at such a crass display of racist imagery, to predictable whining about “political correctness”.

Personally, I find the most outrageous tidbit in the story to be the absurd characterization of Northwestern as the “Harvard of the Midwest”. Everyone knows that Northwestern is the Duke of the Midwest. There is no Harvard of the Midwest–a fact very much to the Midwest’s credit. Instead, Harvard might possibly claim to be the University of Chicago of New England.