Colleges Have Spent Decades Trying to Help Students Feel “Safe.” Recent Events Show That That’s Not Working.

For the past decade or so, battles over campus “safety” have been fought on the grounds of language and expression: words said in class, readings assigned, art displayed, or speakers invited whom some group of students claimed made them unsafe, even in the absence of physical threats or recognizable danger. Over the past two weeks, as police have raided college campuses and arrested students, faculty, and other protesters from Columbia to UCLA to UT-Austin to Indiana University, and as counterprotesters at UCLA launched violent attacks on students, these real dangers...