Freedom of Speech on Campuses

Freedom of speech in colleges has been a huge controversy over this passed decade. Colleges and professors have tried to limit the debates occurring on campus saying, “troubling incidents of speech curtailed” and try to reach a common ground. However, is a common ground even reachable in this debate? Well let's see, it's either free speech or controlled speech. How can you come to "middle ground"? You can say yes to one side or the other. Studies have shown that college students themselves want to put limitations on free speech so no one can get offended. Personally, freedom of speech should be allowed on campus. People have that right and should use that right. If people get offended, they can fight for what they believe in. They can even do research to back up their stance and form a debate out of it. Yes it may hurt their feelings but it can cause them to think. 

College campuses are even going as far as to insert "safe places" onto their campuses where students can go and sit down and relax so they can get away from whatever was offending them. I love puppies and everything but that has gone to far. One of the amazing qualities of freedom of speech is that when something offends you, you have the right to stand for what you believe in. Instead of going and hiding you can fight back. College is supposed to be a place where you get education, expand your mind, and become who you want to be. Shouldn't college teach us to use our rights and teach us how to properly win a debate? When in life would it be a good thing to run and hide in one of these "safe places"? Say your working, you think you're doing an amazing job then suddenly your boss comes in and terminates you. Are you going to run and cry in your "safe place" or are you going to fight for yourself?  

Adding "safe places" and limiting our speech won't stop someone from getting offended. Everyone at some point in their life has been offended. It's how you use it that matters. You could probably allow humans to speak a limited number of words a day and people will still get offended. Especially today, you look at someone the wrong way, wave to someone the wrong way, you could probably sneeze the wrong way and someone will get offended! So let's work on that before we limit our rights. There's no reason why people should be so easily offended and that should be taught at colleges.

The college I'm most interested in is University of Louisville. I looked them up on "The FIRE" website (https://www.thefire.org/schools/university-of-louisville/) in which they concluded that Louisville is a "Yellow College" meaning they protect expression but have rules against "verbal abuse". They limit threats and harassment and promptly doesn't have a "safe place".