HOW CAN YOU SHARPEN YOUR INTELLECT IF YOU DON'T GET THE CHANCE?

The free speech zone is the most ridiculous manifestation of safety culture crowding out learning.  In Texas, the latest legislative mandate is that tax-supported universities treat all public outdoor spaces as First Amendment protected zones.  (In a perverse way, that's progress, legislatures too often having a propensity to seek the removal of inconvenient faculty.)

University President Gregory Fenves seemed happy with the new policy, telling The Daily Texan that "Our campus is a hub for people to gather and share different perspectives and experiences. This freedom is a constitutional right that has always been the foundation upon which students learn and faculty members teach and conduct research."

Students, particularly politically motivated students, don't see it that way.  "[T]he head of [the University Democrats] believes that his equivalents on the right—the Young Conservatives and Turning Point USA—should be denied their right to speak."  Not, note, because Young Conservatives or Turning Point are using their procedural freedoms to keep oppressive structures in order, which was the argument in Critique of Pure Tolerance, but because the very presence of such organizations makes some students "feel unsafe and unwelcome."

That logic is out and proud at Northeastern Illinois University, which is not part of the old Regency system that included Northern, Southern, and Illinois State, and which has a long history of letting the diversicrats run things, even if the students learn little.

Sean Spicer, former White House press secretary, and Donna Brazile, former Democratic National Committee chairwoman, are slated to appear at Northeastern Illinois University (NEIU) on Thursday night to discuss the 2020 election.

But some student activists are demanding that the administration cancel the event. They argue that giving Spicer a platform promotes violence against marginalized people.

That used to be a rather standard point-counterpoint forum, and Northeastern ought be grateful that someone put up the money to make it happen. From what I've seen of the two panelists, Ms Brazile would be more than able to hold her own, as well as providing the people who fear what Mr Spicer might be advocating something resembling intellectual ammunition.

Did I just type "intellectual ammunition?"  Sorry, too triggering.

This apparent consensus among activist students that giving right-wing speakers any opportunity to speak will increase the power of the far-right is baffling. If they really believed that giving people like Spicer "coverage, on any platform, large or small" was such a terrible idea, then the last thing they should do is hold town halls, protest, and make demands: These antics only make it likely that Spicer's remarks will actually attract more attention from the public, media, etc.

That concluding sentence doesn't have to follow. How much attention does the public pay to campus protests absent a war or an incompetent football coach?

The shame, though, is that too few among the faculty, whether in Texas, or in Illinois, will stand up and tell the activist students, and their enablers in Student Affairs, that there is no right not to be offended.