First, that it doesn't get us anywhere to declare some statements as "facts" or "objective truth", because whether or not something is or isn't a "fact" is in effect the entire debate; it begs the question.
Second, I'm pointing out that we already draw lines between colorable arguments and disqualified nonsense. For instance, if you attended Yale Medicine and started preaching that vaccines were poison and bleach was medicine, you would probably not last long there; Yale Medicine classes are (I presume) a "safe space" against "drink bleach" --- which, again, is an actual thing.
For the most part, you're allowed to tell people that bleach is medicine. You shouldn't, but you won't get arrested for it. Similarly: people who want other kinds of "safe spaces" aren't going to achieve a public policy outcome where transphobia and other forms of bigotry are outlawed; rather, they're aiming for something similar, in specific settings, to what top-tier medical schools do to disqualify laetrile advocacy. That doesn't sound crazy to me.
All this stuff is fraught, of course; I follow and endorse FIRE, who seem to have interesting things to say about this and come at it from a fairly hard-line 1A set of principles. Also, if you pay attention to FIRE, you'll see that this kind of campus free speech stuff comes from all sides of the political spectrum. Everyone overreaches; we're human.
First, that it doesn't get us anywhere to declare some statements as "facts" or "objective truth", because whether or not something is or isn't a "fact" is in effect the entire debate; it begs the question.
Second, I'm pointing out that we already draw lines between colorable arguments and disqualified nonsense. For instance, if you attended Yale Medicine and started preaching that vaccines were poison and bleach was medicine, you would probably not last long there; Yale Medicine classes are (I presume) a "safe space" against "drink bleach" --- which, again, is an actual thing.
For the most part, you're allowed to tell people that bleach is medicine. You shouldn't, but you won't get arrested for it. Similarly: people who want other kinds of "safe spaces" aren't going to achieve a public policy outcome where transphobia and other forms of bigotry are outlawed; rather, they're aiming for something similar, in specific settings, to what top-tier medical schools do to disqualify laetrile advocacy. That doesn't sound crazy to me.
All this stuff is fraught, of course; I follow and endorse FIRE, who seem to have interesting things to say about this and come at it from a fairly hard-line 1A set of principles. Also, if you pay attention to FIRE, you'll see that this kind of campus free speech stuff comes from all sides of the political spectrum. Everyone overreaches; we're human.