The proliferation of safe spaces and the expansion of the set of prohibited viewpoints pose a threat to the free exchange of ideas on college campuses. I am proud to be a member of an institution that has played a leading role in fighting against such speech restrictions for decades. Fortunately, the University of Chicago is also an institution committed to a robust exchange of views about the institution’s own policies, actions, and values. The university’s commitment to free speech entails an openness to statements challenging the university’s conception of free speech.

And to that end, it seems to me that there is indeed something to be said for safe spaces on the campus of a university committed to the robust exchange of ideas. It is no doubt important that campuses be sites of speech environments governed by norms that allow for a diversity of viewpoints. But (and this point builds off the work of Heather Gerken) there is also value in university campuses being sites of “second-order speech diversity.” By that, I mean that we might want our campuses not only to be sites of speech environments in which a diversity of viewpoints can be expressed, but also to be sites of a diversity of speech environments — including, potentially, some speech environments governed by norms that prohibit the expression of certain views.

For example, we may want there to be some speech environments on campus governed by a restriction on heteronormative language. We may want there to be other speech environments on campus in which students who believe in God know that their beliefs will not be challenged. We may want there to be still other speech environments on campus in which students can share their experiences as survivors of sexual assault and in which statements that in any way “blame the victim” are barred. And so on. We of course also want spaces on campus that are not governed by viewpoint-restrictive norms, and perhaps we want all credit-bearing classes to fall into the latter category. But we can have some safe spaces without having only safe spaces. We can have speech diversity of the first order and the second order.

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