When Dr. Claudine Gay resigned from the presidency of Harvard University, my phone lit up with phone call and texts. The callers and texters included Black women academics, Black professional women, Black male academics, and the like. Reeling with emotion from profound sadness to explosive anger, we had been watching a tried-and-true hallmark of American racial oppression—a public lynching.

Even though this type of lynching did not involve a rope and a tree, or fire or bullet, there was an attac...