How is this any different than saying "If you're a black man and you appear in public with a white woman just to see if people will react poorly, and you get in trouble for it, good"?

Before someone suggests that I'm equating the two actions, I am not. My point is that this line of thought absolves others of responsibility for their actions. Whether or not the professor anticipated the response is irrelevant to the question "Is this sort of response wholly inappropriate?"