WHEN IT COMES to intolerance, campus administrators have become innovators, turning the marketplace of ideas into an ideological breadline. Postage-stamp-size free speech zones, vague speech codes, and speaker disinvitations are driving a national conversation about intellectual intolerance on campus. There is no shortage of examples of the campus speech crisis in action.

Los Angeles’s Pierce College is the latest offender. Administrators disciplined a student for handing out Constitutions on campus—because he wasn’t standing in a tiny “free speech zone” while reminding people of the constitutional limits on government power.

The irony was lost on administrators, at least until the student filed a lawsuit. The U.S. Department of Justice weighed in, rebuking the school’s 616-square-foot, free-speech rectangle—about the size of three parking spots—on the college’s sprawling 426-acre campus. In January, a court agreed that the speech zone was subject to constitutional challenge, “because after all,” the federal judge ruled, “what is a university’s purpose but to expose students to new ideas and spark dialogue?”

Some college administrators, it seems, dispute the value of new ideas and dialogue entirely. Georgia’s Gwinnett College stopped a student from speaking about his religious faith because it “disturbed the comfort of persons.” Vague and restrictive speech codes like the one at Gwinnett are chilling dialogue on campuses nationwide. Speech codes narrow the range of acceptable opinion by prohibiting “any disruptive or offensive messages” or define harassment so broadly that even gossip and practical jokes are banned.

“What is a university’s purpose but to expose students to new ideas and spark dialogue?”

—Judge Otis D. Wright

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education recently surveyed the speech codes of 461 colleges and universities; only 37 schools earned a “green light” rating, meaning their policies do not seriously threaten campus expression. The vast majority, 58%, received a yellow light rating; and 32% received FIRE’s lowest grade, a red light rating for enforcing speech codes that “clearly and substantially restrict freedom of speech.”

Most students seem distressingly unconcerned about these anti-speech policies. In March, a Gallup-Knight Foundation poll reported that about 30% of college students support shouting down controversial guest speakers, up from 22% two years ago. More alarming, one in ten—almost two million college students—condone violence against people based on their viewpoints. More alarming still, 15% of college presidents agree that it is sometimes acceptable to shout down a visiting speaker.

These anecdotes of intolerance are symptomatic of a broader threat to diversity of viewpoints that extends to the corporate world. Outside the campus bubble, Google made headlines when it fired engineer James Damore for even questioning Google’s diversity policies in an internally circulated memorandum. While Apple urged its customers to “Think Different,” Google’s firing of Damore follows the example of campus speech policies and reads an oppressive “Don’t” in front of that slogan.

Probably the most ominous data point of all demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding about the value of a free society that is fueling this embrace of intolerance: more than half of college students say that promoting an inclusive society is a higher priority than protecting free speech.

But inclusiveness and freedom are essential allies. Free speech requires inclusivity because it demands tolerance of competing viewpoints. An institutional commitment to free speech is a commitment to welcoming genuine diversity of ideas, forms of expression, and values. The melting pot of ideas may lead to conflict, but it’s how we confront ideas we disagree with that defines us as Americans.

PLF is taking action to make sure students have the opportunity to understand the importance of preserving all our rights, including the freedom of speech.

PLF’s recent U.S. Supreme Court victory on behalf of political activists in Minnesota Voters Alliance v. Mansky will also pay dividends in the campus free speech fight. As Wen Fa explains on page six, the vague ban on political apparel at the voting booth struck down in MVA bears a strong resemblance to the vague campus speech codes detailed above. And the Court’s willingness to apply genuine judicial scrutiny to Minnesota’s location-based ban on speech puts campus speech zones on the chopping block, too.

Nowhere is the need for open debate more important than on America’s college campuses. Students maturing into adults must be confronted with new ideas, especially ideas with which they disagree, if they are to become informed and responsible members of a free society. Freedom can be risky. But we must take that chance, because committing to freedom is the only way to protect individual liberty and foster a civil society.