Senator Feinstein Thinks It’s Acceptable for Violent Mobs to Control Speech

During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing earlier this week, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.) said that it was okay for universities to cancel controversial speakers over threats of violence — and people got mad at her for trying to silence “conservative” voices. But all of those people were missing the point. 

Yes, Feinstein’s comments do come at a time when speakers invited by conservative student groups have routinely been met with debilitating protests. And yes, a Democratic senator’s suggesting that colleges have every right to cancel Republican-invited speakers is certainly going to sound the partisan-outrage alarm bell — and I can’t say I’m surprised to have seen so many headlines like “Dianne Feinstein Defends Canceling Conservative Speakers on Campus” (The Daily Caller) and “Senator Feinstein Defends Suppression of Conservative Speakers On College Campuses” (Mediaite), and countless similarly scripted tweets. 

But the truth is, what Feinstein said shouldn’t be upsetting for partisan reasons — it’s much, much bigger than that. The issue here is not that colleges are denying their students the “right” to hear conservative speakers, because, of course, no such right exists. 

The issue is this: Feinsten is saying that students are not free to bring any speaker that they choose to their campuses, because campuses are not safe places for free speech, and that that is totally acceptable and fine. Remove the ideology of the “controversial” speakers in question, and it becomes clear just how absurdly out of line Feinstein really is. 

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