No platforming began in universities and is still mostly confined there because the tactics necessary for it would get the police called almost anywhere else. The university is not solely the illiberal left's space. When they try to no platform someone they're almost always trying to get the university administration to ban the attendance of someone another university club or society invited banned. Fuck that. Other people's safe spaces aren't their safe spaces. If they want people gone or want to make their attendance impossible or unpleasant let them use violence and incivility and suffer the consequences.
> Inasmuch as there is a real point of debate here, and not just the whinging of butthurt right-wingers who are used to having a platform given to them whenever they ask, the question is whether students have a right to control who the university gives a platform to. This is an area of legitimate struggle (students say yes, administrations say no), but it's overshadowed by the bogus argument that this is actually about censorship.
Some students say yes, others say no.
Their views are deeply offensive to me, and would have been back when I was a student too. I get sick to my stomach at the kind of attitude it demonstrates.
If they genuinely want to provide a "safe space" then they need to shut the hell up about these policies too, as they too are likely to cause offence. Otherwise it is simply hypocritical attempts to stifle the speech of just the people they disagree with.
Inasmuch as there is a real point of debate here, and not just the whinging of butthurt right-wingers who are used to having a platform given to them whenever they ask, the question is whether students have a right to control who the university gives a platform to. This is an area of legitimate struggle (students say yes, administrations say no), but it's overshadowed by the bogus argument that this is actually about censorship.