The College Fix

University administrations should not put up with this type of lawless behavior

So it turns out, unsurprisingly, that all of those violent anti-free-speech protests on campuses across the country have a bit of a practical externality associated with them: they cost money. A lot of money. Some universities have been forced to shell out upwards of half a million bucks—a genuinely staggering sum, when you stop to think about it—in order to throw up Jersey barriers and hire SWAT teams and ensure that progressive activists will not send campus speakers to the hospital. In some cases the cost is even higher: when Ben Shapiro spoke at Berkeley this past fall, the school plunked down $600,000 to cover the cost of securing the event.

For schools that routinely spend hundreds and hundreds of thousand of dollars on Second Vice-Chancellor Deputies for Diversity, Equitable Pronouns and Fair Feminist Speech, a few one-time payments for extra security might seem like a rounding error at the end of the day. Then again, this kind of money is not cheap. And one gathers that is precisely the point: to make conservative thought on campuses too expensive to countenance.

This is a brilliant tactic, and it is a common one within the context of warfare: utilize certain strategic advantages to drive up the price of resistance. It is the tactic of guerrilla warfare: what you lack in numbers and resources you make up for in cleverness and in exhausting the other guy’s resources. And the effect will be multiplied when it’s spread out over numerous fronts: if a controversial speaker at one campus is met with violent protests, then other colleges will likely employ expensive security when the speaker comes to their campuses, as well, even if the protests there would not have been violent. The effect of one savage mob is multiplied to be larger than itself.

All of which raises the question: what are we supposed to do about this? Campuses have an obligation to provide accommodations to public speakers, even controversial ones; they also have an obligation to ensure that these events are safe and free from violence; they are also obligated to be good stewards of the taxpayer funds and student tuition to which they have been entrusted.

The short-term solution—provide equitable venue space at a large cost—is painful, but arguably necessary. The long-term issue is also somewhat painful but maybe even more necessary: implement an absolute zero-tolerance policy for violent behavior on campus. Let students know that property destruction, assault, terror and mayhem will, if discovered, result in immediate suspension or expulsion. This is not a difficult policy to implement; it only requires that universities recognize that campuses are supposed to be places of free and fair discourse, and that individuals who wish to squash that discourse, sometimes even violently, are in no way welcome there.

MORE: Ignoring violent activists, professor claims campus free speech crisis is ‘manufactured’

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