If you've been paying any sort of attention to anything lately, you've probably heard the term 'safe space'. A safe space is an area set aside where a person or group of people can go to escape from different opinions, ideas that they do not like, or what they might see as 'microaggressions'. The latest controversy regarding safe spaces popped up when chalk markings supporting Donald Trump was found scrawled around Emory University. This is only part of a growing trend, where college campuses around America and the UK have been implementing safe spaces in order to make a small subset of students feel safe.

While these safe spaces have been created with only good intentions in mind, it's had a chilling effect on intellectual discourse. October of last year, the University of Manchester banned Julie Bindel, a feminist activist, and Milo Yiannopoulos, a conservative activist, from speaking at the university. They were banned due to views which the university felt could make students feel unsafe. It's true that their views have been outside the mainstream- Bindel, though a feminist, has written articles questioning the validity of transgender issues, and Yiannopoulos, though openly gay, is also the technology editor at conservative news outlet Brietbart. However, they've never called for violence against any person or particular group. So why are their opinions too dangerous to be heard?

This isn't the only incident where the idea of safe spaces has shut down the free exchange of ideas on campus. Students at Yale demanded the resignation of Erika Christakis, husband to a professor at Yale and who taught a few courses herself, after she wrote a letter suggesting that the administration was heavy-handed in advising what Halloween costumes to avoid. As of December 7th, she is no longer teaching at Yale. It's important to note that she did not defend potentially offensive costumes, but noted that students could look away, or have a conversation with the offending wearer. In another instance, students at the University of Kansas have demanded a professor be fired after saying a racial insult in class. She did not use the word in an inflammatory way. She simply said it, in the context that she'd never seen it spray painted on a college campus.

Safe spaces aren't a horrible idea, but there's a time and a place for everything. For me, my dorm's a safe space. I struggle to be around a lot of people, and what's college but a lot of people? While I enjoy it, sometimes I need to get away from it all. So my dorm acts as my safe space, a place where I go to relax, recharge, where I don't have to debate or discuss anything with anyone. But a safe space can't be an academic institution. College students have to learn to deal with people, and unfortunately, people will do ugly things, say ugly things, or even hold different opinions than you'd like. Putting safe spaces in college does nothing to help students- it only ensures that the only speech that will be heard is whatever's politically correct for the day, and that the free exchange of ideas- that thing that higher education is based upon- will die.