Andrew Mytelka of The Chronicle of Higher Education reports  four philosophy professors who were involved in a dust-up with Brian Leiter, an influential figure in the field, received packages of excrement in the mail last summer, and critics of Mr. Leiter are accusing him of being at the bottom of the fecal attack, reports BuzzFeed.

Mr. Leiter, a professor at the University of Chicago and founding editor of the Philosophical Gourmet Report, a powerful ranking of graduate programs, is known for his combative style and caustic judgments of colleagues and programs, but he has forcefully denied the accusations.

“This is about trying to embarrass me,” he told BuzzFeed. “This isn’t about the recipients.”

The four professors — Carrie Ichikawa Jenkins of the University of British Columbia, Sally Haslanger of MIT, J. David Velleman of NYU, and Carolyn D. Jennings of the University of California at Merced — said the poop packages were unequivocal threats and attempts to silence them. The incident presumably stems from Ms. Jenkins’s criticism two years ago of philosophers who don’t treat their colleagues, especially “professionally vulnerable” junior scholars, with respect — an implicit critique of Mr. Leiter and his Philosophical Gourmet Report. The other professors supported her perspective.

Coaching little kids hockey is just as bad (not the kids, the parents).