Disadvantaged students deserve ample assistance, yet disadvantage need not coincide with race or ethnicity. Those excluded are often frustrated by seeing individuals who may be no worse off than themselves receiving special treatment solely because of ancestry. Furthermore, bureaucracies created to serve or champion particular groups tend to have vested interests in emphasizing differences, fostering complaints, and maintaining the separation of those groups. Safeguarding intellectual freedom is of critical importance to the academy. Higher education should prepare students to grapple with contrary or unpleasant ideas, not shield them from their content.
Tolerance is a core value of academic life, as is civility.
College authorities should ensure that these values prevail. But tolerance involves a willingness, not to suppress, but to allow divergent opinions. And when these programs favor manipulative psychological techniques over honest discussion, they also undermine the intellectual purposes of higher education and anger those subjected to them. The discriminatory enforcement of campus regulations can only sap the legitimacy of academic authority and create a pervasive sense of mistrust. Indeed, should students feel that repeated violations not only go unpunished, but are actually appeased, the reckless may be tempted to take matters into their own hands.