Leaders like Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther King used vigorous protest and relentless argument to push society towards their vision of equality of opportunity and equality before the law. Most Americans still hew to that classical liberal ideal, as do many of those who marched with justified anger over the killing of George Floyd by a white policeman in Minneapolis. But a dangerous rival approach has emerged from American universities. It rejects the liberal notion of progress. It defines everyone by their race, and every action as racist or anti-racist. It is not yet dominant, but it is dynamic and it is spreading out of the academy into newsrooms and boardrooms. If it supplants liberal values, then intimidation will chill open debate and sow division to the disadvantage of all, black and white.