As a result, a few students reprehensibly imposed censorship of their own. Although they had every right to ignore the ad, or to speak out against it, they had no right to prevent the public from reading Horowitz's views. While the events at Brown are an extreme case, they expose a larger, more disturbing trend involving special speech codes. They are often tacitly accepted in the public arena, nowhere more clearly than on college campuses. The Price of Censorship Universities depend on free speech.
Academic institutions are hotbeds of ideas, seedbeds of revolution.
For example, college campuses played an integral role during the anti-Vietnam war movement of the 1960's. Such movements began as dissident opinions and, through the free exchange of ideas, quickly spread to the mainstream. Unfortunately, many universities now forget this legacy. We live in an age that supposedly welcomes and celebrates diversity. Yet this noble attitude can lead to censorship.