Happily ensconced as a tenured Professor of Biology at the small Skowhegan College in the wilds of Maine, Tymoteusz Tarnaszewski-who goes by the moniker "T"-suddenly finds himself in unknown territory when an incident in a colleague's classroom motivates the college administration to issue a blanket policy requiring the installation of "trigger warnings" in all syllabi.

T, believing that this would constrain his teaching, refuses to comply, even after one of his own students lodges a complaint about something T said during the course of a genetics lecture. The administration's judgment is swift: T will be terminated at semester's end for insubordination.

What recourse, if any, does T have to save his position? And what will he do when he learns the higher-ups knew, early on, that the student who lodged the complaint against him is actually a threat to the school?