In the past few years, Halloween has become less about candy and jack-o’-lanterns and more about the accompanying controversy. Either the latest “sexy” costume is ruining something banal — tariffs, The Handmaid’s Tale, or even Mr. Rogers — or it’s something more serious.

Four years ago, the student body at Yale University harassed a professor for suggesting that the university ought not to police its students’ costumes. Since then, the perils of Halloween politics have reverberated through academia.