The coddling of college students in universities around the United States has resulted in ignorance that has led to dissension on multiple college campuses. Some students are quick to play the “victim card” or the “blame game” when they are offended by someone else’s words, actions, or beliefs before they ever turn the other cheek or give someone the benefit of the doubt. Oklahoma Wesleyan University’s President, Dr. Everett Piper, controversially stated, "This is Not a Day Care. It's a University," when addressing the students attending Oklahoma Wesleyan University. This stance was prompted by a series of recent events involving colleges around the United States but was finally triggered by a student who complained to Dr. Piper about how he was offended by a sermon that was given about 1 Corinthians 13, which is primarily about showing love. The student complained that he was victimized. I think that this is ridiculous and, as a college student, I full-heartedly support President Piper’s stance. College students, or any person, for that matter, who are constantly playing the victim card hinder their ability to grow and improve.
One of the most important skills is acquired through hearing other student’s expressions of free speech and understanding how to respect an opinion that contradicts your own. This skill is tolerance. However, students are slowly silencing the freedom of speech of professors, students, and faculty on college campuses and subsequently extinguishing the cultivation of tolerance. This puts tight restrictions on everyone on a college campus because ideas and beliefs are always going to overlap in a way that some of the ideas cannot exist in peace. Free speech is an important constitutional right that allows students to learn to voice their opinion and affirm their beliefs. However, when free speech is purposefully practiced to harm or inflict emotional distress on another person, then our free speech is being exercised unjustifiably. Free speech should not belittle or ostracize another person.
Through free speech, students are exposed to new perceptions and learn how to coincide with people that don’t share the same ideas. By complete avoidance of ideas that may not be agreeable, students fail to gain a valuable skill of being able to communicate without judgment and find compromise. When students stop entertaining the possibility that other people’s ideas may be just as legitimate as their own, students start perceiving the world from one point of view. What makes one opinion more viable than another?
College students compelling to categorize offensive language need to exercise tolerance. They need to approach a difficult topic with the ability to entertain the viability of the others’ world by momentarily suspending the views of their own. It doesn’t have to be permanently, but people deserve respect by giving them the benefit of the doubt and the opportunity to have their own opinions. It does not make sense for students to bash the beliefs of others while forcing their own opinions to be heard. There is no black and white answer to this growing predicament. The answer will only be found in the grey area of compromise through respect and tolerance.
