Let me preface by saying I disagree with everything you say, but I still think you have the right to say it.
Universities are meant to be institutions of learning. Learning isn’t always comfortable. Some long held truths turn out to be wrong at some point. What we all think is true or right right now could completely reverse in a decade. Letting people speak especially when it’s against your morals is important for learning and understanding. Even if it’s bizarre and incoherent, if somebody believes it, we should try to understand why so that we can better educate those who were persuaded.
As an example of the rapid change in public thought and what’s acceptable, almost nobody publicly supported gay marriage a little over a decade ago. Saying you did would result in mockery, people questioning your sexual identity, people bringing up the religious history of America, etc. Now publicly opposing it is career suicide.
The student body is going to have its own set of values, some of which may challenge the prevailing norms of society or the university itself. Should a university ignore, nurture, or challenge the views of its students? I feel like, as a student, you should be allowed to pick. Because depending on the issue, or the individual, the answer may change.
For example, at one time Gen-Xers and Millennials were significantly more tolerant of homosexuality than society overall (they still are, but society has largely come around). Did universities do them a disservice by either nurturing or ignoring these views, rather than intellectually challenging their pro-gay marriage views?
> The student body is going to have its own set of values, some of which may challenge the prevailing norms of society or the university itself. Should a university ignore, nurture, or challenge the views of its students? I feel like, as a student, you should be allowed to pick. Because depending on the issue, or the individual, the answer may change.
And what happens when students cease to challenge their own views? They become accustomed to a monoculture and become adverse to views other than their own. In time, the refusal to challenge their own views morphs into hostility towards those that dare challenge those views.
> For example, at one time Gen-Xers and Millennials were significantly more tolerant of homosexuality than society overall (they still are, but society has largely come around). Did universities do them a disservice by either nurturing or ignoring these views, rather than intellectually challenging their pro-gay marriage views?
It did them a service. By being force to challenge these views, these students were prompted to developed effective arguments to refute those challenges. This better equipped them to turn around and challenge the rest of society's views on these topics.
I think there’s a difference between challenging and shutting down. Challenging should be encouraged since it (at least theoretically) forces people to have a reasonable basis for their beliefs. Students who don’t want to be challenged and just want to be correct and shut down opposing thoughts shouldn’t really be called students. They’re not seeing to broaden their horizons. If they only want to learn about their speciality topic, that’s okay, but university isn’t really the place for that. Technical and speciality schools exist to focus on small fields of learning.
Universities are meant to be institutions of learning. Learning isn’t always comfortable. Some long held truths turn out to be wrong at some point. What we all think is true or right right now could completely reverse in a decade. Letting people speak especially when it’s against your morals is important for learning and understanding. Even if it’s bizarre and incoherent, if somebody believes it, we should try to understand why so that we can better educate those who were persuaded.
As an example of the rapid change in public thought and what’s acceptable, almost nobody publicly supported gay marriage a little over a decade ago. Saying you did would result in mockery, people questioning your sexual identity, people bringing up the religious history of America, etc. Now publicly opposing it is career suicide.