Obenshain: Campuses Should Be ‘Battlegrounds for Ideas’

At Young America’s Foundation’s 38th annual National Conservative Student Conference on Tuesday afternoon, author and commentator Kate Obenshain encouraged students from across the country attending the conference to fearlessly take the fight for conservative ideas to their college campuses. Obenshain discussed how the epidemic of free speech zones at colleges and universities has put limitations of the First Amendment rights of college students which is a great threat to their individual liberty.  “College campuses should be battlegrounds for ideas, just these factories of ideas, but they’re not,” Obenshain noted.   “Where else are we supposed to have the vibrant free exchange of ideas than a college campus?” Obenshain asked the students. “You’re supposed to be a little bit uncomfortable every now and then.” Even though conservatives can often feel outnumbered on their liberal college campuses, Obenshain told students not to become complacent and back down when their professors and fellow students try to suppress conservative ideas.  “These are college campuses where we’re supposed to be arguing and if somebody has a really stupid or evil idea, freedom allows all of you to be able to challenge that idea,” Obenshain said. “But when we’re shut down we can’t challenge ideas.”