All choices are trade-offs. All values are trade-offs. One option is chosen, the other options are not chosen. Every option has a set of advantages and disadvantages. You pick a set when you make a choice or prefer one value over another.
To value free speech over restricted or coerced speech was the choice of America's founders, and that choice was affirmed by generations of Americans . . until today. Now, some choose to ban what you or I want to say if they don't approve of it.
Colleges and universities used to pride themselves on valuing open discussion regardless of who might disagree. Now administration or student groups routinely cancel speakers, or use intimidation to silence the person whose opinion they don't like.
Their choice to restrict speech gives them the comfort of not having to defend their opinion against the analysis of a critic. But there's also a problem: maybe they have missed something. Maybe they don't possess all truth. Maybe they're wrong sometimes.
(cont'd tomorrow)
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