Every so often a professor at an elite school decides to stir the pot and call for radical action, and this week that role falls to a Howard University journalism professor named Stacey Patton. The claim that white allies should “emulate the pre-Civil War John Brown” made headlines and forced conservatives to point out how dangerous academic rhetoric can be when it flirts with violence.

Patton’s words landed like a provocation from a comfortable perch, and that contrast is part of the reason this story landed with so much heat. People who enjoy secure paychecks and campus prestige shouting about uprising rarely face the fallout they advocate for others.

Stacey Patton is a professor of journalism at the Washington, D.C., private school. In a recent blog post titled “John Brown Didn’t Ask Enslaved People How to Be A Good White Ally,” she discouraged White liberals from asking her how to be a better “ally” to minorities, and encouraged them instead to emulate Brown.

Brown was a militant slave abolitionist during the pre-Civil War “Bleeding Kansas” period. In 1856, he orchestrated the Pottawatomie massacre. He and fellow abolitionists dragged five Kansas settlers, at least three of whom were pro-slavery sympathizers, out of their homes and executed them.

John Brown’s historical record is violent and messy, and anyone invoking him should expect questions about the consequences of armed rebellion. Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry and the bloodshed it caused are part of why invoking his example is inflammatory, not inspirational.

In October 1859, Brown led a 21-man raid on a federal armory in Harpers Ferry, part of Virginia at the time. His goal was to start a slave uprising, but few slaves joined the fight. A local militia confronted Brown and his men and fought back. Four townspeople, including freed slave Heyward Shepherd, were caught in the crossfire and killed in the skirmish.

After 10 of his men were killed, Brown was captured. He was later tried for treason and eventually hanged.

Conservative readers will note that Patton’s language isn’t just academic theorizing; it edges toward urging people to burn things for a cause she believes righteous. That kind of rhetoric risks normalizing violence and making it sound like a noble shortcut when politics and law are the civil avenues available.

There is a deeper hypocrisy at play when academics who live insulated lives cheer for disruptive action that disproportionately hurts ordinary citizens. The people most likely to suffer from rioting and lawlessness are rarely the professors writing manifestos from campus offices.

“So when white allies ask, ‘What can I do?’ here’s the answer: Be like John Brown. Ask yourself, what am I willing to burn so somebody else can breathe?” Patton wrote.

“Brown didn’t need a syllabus, a think piece, or a guidebook on allyship. He didn’t need affirmation from Black folks that he was one of the good ones,” Patton wrote. “He saw the horror for what it was and decided that ending this racist f—ery mattered more than being understood.”

That quote reads like a call to arms, plain and simple, and conservatives should call it out for what it is: dangerous rhetoric that could inspire real harm. There’s an obvious responsibility that comes with public influence, and advocating for burning things to help others crosses a line most decent people recognize.

Universities should be places for tough ideas and open debate, but they also must hold their people accountable when words verge into explicit calls for violence. Free expression doesn’t mean a free pass to incite chaos, and public institutions have to balance academic freedom with public safety.

Meanwhile, this episode feeds into a broader pattern where left-leaning activists sometimes romanticize violent episodes from history while ignoring the fallout those episodes caused. That selective memory isn’t historical analysis so much as partisan myth-making, and it deserves to be challenged.