Atticus Finch Was on the Wrong Side

It's time for "To Kill a Mockingbird" to give up its treasured place in American culture.

The 1960 novel by Harper Lee was published to instant acclaim, has sold more than 30 million copies and is ubiquitous in high school curricula. The 1962 movie version, starring Gregory Peck, is a classic in itself and won three Academy Awards.

But nothing is forever, even for a book commonly called "timeless." Lee's novel is deeply out of sympathy with a moment when on college campuses, and in the culture more broadly, due process isn't what it used to be, when it is often thought to be a hateful act to i...