Fourteen months ago, the University of Mississippi campus was awash in democracy and unity. For one remarkable weekend, Republicans and Democrats could speak to each other without spitting in each other's face.

Barack Obama, then a U.S. senator, was in town.

John McCain, then — and still — a U.S. senator, was in town, too.

Secret service agents were more ubiquitous than Hotty Toddies. Rock music filled the air. Special-interest groups — my favorite: Rednecks for Obama — lined The Grove. Students of all stripes actually paid attention to politics. And journalists waxed excessively about the irony of the nation's first black presidential nominee participating in a debate at a Deep South university still known by some for the violence that erupted when James Meredith tried to integrate its student body.

Fourteen months later, the Ole Miss campus has had another few seconds of fame in the news.

Not because of democracy and unity.

Because of the Klan.

The real Klan.

Hoods.

Robes.

Flags.

But fear? Intimidation? Threats? Probably not.

What happened last Saturday in Oxford, Miss., didn't erupt into anything more than a brief headline; three cheers for that small wonder. No violence. No injuries. Scant news coverage. A few videos scattered across the Internet. Just a short protest by 11 Klansmen dressed in white, red and black. It was over shortly after it began.

Let's hope all Klan rallies are so impotent.

What's intriguing is that the Klan wasn't protesting for white supremacy or against one of its modern-day issues such as opposition to gay marriage and immigration. Instead, this minute protest apparently was in support of the First Amendment — freedom of speech.

In a sense, it's quite simple, yet flawed, logic. Earlier this month, the university banned the school band from playing the "From Dixie With Love" medley at Ole Miss football games because fans would yell "the South shall rise again" during the song.

The university, feeling the chant carried improper racial and historic overtones, had asked students to stop yelling the phrase.

They didn't.

So the song's no longer part of the band's repertoire.

With its deep connection to the Old South and embattled Confederate symbols, Ole Miss leadership has increasingly sought to move the university away from the most unsuitable images and into a more enlightened sphere. No longer are fans allowed to wave Rebel flags at football games. (Wise choice.) Colonel Reb, the Old South gentleman planter who served as the school's longtime mascot, has been retired from the sidelines. (Debatable choice.)

And this year, the university felt the phrase "the South shall rise again" did not project the 21st-century image a Southern school with a stout academic reputation required. (An overreaction, perhaps.)

So 11 Klansmen gathered on the steps of a campus building before Ole Miss' football game last Saturday, decked out in full regalia as if their very livelihood had been attacked. Hoods. Robes. Flags. Fists waving in the air. Fingers pointing at the group of students and onlookers who booed and heckled them from across the way, state troopers standing guard between them.

The Klansmen felt the banning of "From Dixie With Love" was an "attack on our southern heritage and culture," according to the Memphis Commercial Appeal.

If so, they didn't put up much of a fight.

Make no mistake, home-grown terrorism and hatred is alive in America. It hasn't been eradicated. It may never be.

The Anti-Defamation League estimates that there are more than 40 different Klan groups in the United States that claim more than 5,000 members. Ominously, Klan activity has increased during the second half of this decade, the ADL says, thanks in part to concerns over those aforementioned issues of gay marriage and immigration. Meanwhile, the Southern Poverty Law Center this month is sounding a frightened alarm about the Klan's distant cousin — ultra-right militia groups, whose numbers faded earlier this decade but are now rising at distressing rates.

Laden with matters racists and radicals can't ignore — most notably a black president and continued concerns about immigration — America again is seeing extremists gorge themselves on a volatile, distasteful stew.

Still, how peculiar it was last weekend to hear the Klan protesting not for their race, or their religion, or against that of others. Instead, they claimed to be fighting for their constitutional right to speak freely.

I bet that's a free-speech argument the administration at Ole Miss wishes wouldn't return anytime soon.