Offensive speech/ideas must be protected in colleges/universities

A quick definition from the webster dictionary;Offensive: causing someone to feel hurt, angry, or upsetFirst, a little background on where I'm coming from - here is a video by ReasonTV depicting the state of the way speech is seen on Occidental College: (notice that one girl in the video says "it is not about creating an intellectual space; it is not.")1. College/Universities need to foster opposing viewpoints in order to preserve an academic environment.This unto itself should be known to be true between me and my opponent, at least I should hope so. A college/university is an institution wherein we as students should expect to go in order to have our beliefs challenged in order for us to grow more intellectually. 2. Opposing viewpoints are going to be challenging/uncomfortable to consider.Was the atomic bombing of hiroshima and nagasaki justified? Is abortion justified? The death penalty?Is welfare compassionate or is it corrupting? What should be done about food stamps? Are Christians wrong and delusional? Are Atheists wrong and hate God?What is more fair - a flat tax or a progressive tax?I challenge my audience to simply browse the various topics listed on DDO's Big Issues page. It doesn't matter which position you take here - any position at all could be taken to be offensive. It is impossible not to be offensive to somebody somewhere. The only way to avoid being offended is to never have beliefs be challenged. In fact, even feeling offended by an idea, I would wager, implies that the individual may actually be feeling a twinge of fear that they might be wrong. This is a good thing, because it opens the doorway to debate and discussion of some controversial or heavy topics which are necessary to be talked about by an intellectually advanced society.3. Colleges/Universities that are becoming intolerant of offensive speech/ideas are disrespecting adult college students by treating them like children.If you are going to college in the united states, then odds are you're at least 18 years old. At this point in your life you are considered a legal adult and you have a right to be treated like an adult. Any college or university which continues to treat you like a child who cannot comprehend the heavy controversial topics of the world is insulting your intelligence as a fully grown adult.As for other college students who are not opposed to colleges and universities censoring offensive ideas and speech, what do you think will become of them? What kind of people are they becoming? How will they be capable of facing the real world when they leave college? If they decide to be parents, how will their behavior now effect the way they might raise their own children? 4. Censorship/intolerance is fostering disempowered studentsRather than empowering students to face speech/ideas they don't like, many colleges and universities are creating 'free speechh zones', or outright banning offensive speech/ideas altogether, while creating 'safe place' locations where students can be that presumably protects them from speech/ideas they don't like. By doing this, colleges and universities are disempowering their students and nurturing a sense of victim mentality amongst their students. This is a far cry from real compassion, which would view these students as powerful adults who can move mountains; instead, this is some strange perversion of compassion, which views these students as powerless victims that require psychological/emotional attention in order to move on in life.5. Censorship/intolerance flies in the face of free speechRegardless of whether it is a controversial idea in debate, or some person with issues who wants to be a vocal jerk, all people nevertheless have a natural born right to speak freely. Real compassion does not mean to censor other people - real compassion means giving people the right to express themselves honestly, no matter how messy that might be. Free speech shows a reflection of our humanity, with our virtues and our faults. It is what historians will be able to look at one day to see how far society has come in the future. Colleges/universities that take this away through censorship and intolerance are chilling the ability of students to express themselves honestly. Free speech is a natural born right, and as such it is a crime against humanity to take that right away from someone. People have a right to express their anger, pain, or apathy, even if it comes across through nasty slurs or by just generally being the jerks on the campus.6. Censorship necessitates dogmaThe only way for people to avoid being offended would be for the college/university to become dogmatic, to have a statement of beliefs, and to censor and become intolerant of any viewpoints that oppose that accepted dogma, so that students will never be exposed to viewpoints that are not theirs. This is the antithesis of what a college/university experience should be like and at the very most is a twisted perversion of a university which wouuld lead to some dystopian collegiate future.Imagine going to a college where all the debates have been shut down, and all opposing thought has been effectively banned, because it may be viewed as a microaggression to someone else. Imagine a college that has declared that all debates have been decided, and you do not have the right to question the outcomes of those debates.Imagine what debate.org would look like under that paradigm.