On Sept. 12, Missouri Student Association president Payton Head was repeatedly harassed for the color of his skin as he walked through the school that he called home. (Now Former) Missouri University president Timothy Wolfe did nothing. On Oct. 5, the Legion of Black Collegians (the university’s black student government) were similarly harassed with racial slurs on campus. Wolfe did nothing. Oct. 24, a swastika was drawn with feces on the wall of a university dorm. Wolfe did nothing. Wolfe deserved to be questioned for his questionable hiring decisions that left the university with a stunning lack of diversity on campus. He deserved all of the criticism he received for his inaction on so much of the harassment that took place on his campus. (There's even more information about how badly Wolfe mismanaged this.) In my mind, there is no question about Wolfe's inability to do his job. Institutional racism is a very real and very dangerous problem that unquestionably must be addressed now. In fact, I think it’s incredible to see the power of the youth voice when students unite against the awful things that we are forced to reckon with strictly because of the color of our skin.

All of this makes it even tougher for me to say that I, as a non-racist person of color, am completely opposed to #ConcernedStudent1950. The movement lost me when they started actively denying others the same rights that allowed them to protest in the first place. First, when Tim Tai, a student journalist, tried to take pictures of their public protest, he was harassed because protesters thought that the media wouldn’t give the movement fair treatment. In fact, a professor is clearly on video asking for “muscle” to help force a cameraman off of the public quad. A movement shouldn’t be teaching its supporters that it’s OK to harass the press. After all, our governing document clearly states that, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.” Second, Mizzou also sent an email out to its students saying that it was acceptable to call the police for hurtful speech. Essentially, if you get offended by speech, the police can arrest the speaker. How can a university, an institution that should promote the free exchange of ideas and speech, make such an overbearing authoritarian rule?

Let’s be clear here, I am in no way defending the attacks. I hate racists as much as anyone. In fact, I probably hate them more because I am also a victim. Between being openly taunted in school and getting pushed around by kids after school, I’ll never forget being bullied because I was a brown kid in post 9/11 America. Racism is real, it stings, and it is one of the worst things you can ever feel. I wouldn’t wish that pain on anyone ever.

However, there is something far more dangerous than simply hate speech and that’s a fundamental reduction of our right to say what we want and how we feel. To limit that right just because it offends or you don’t like it is simply wrong. It displays a fundamental misunderstanding of how the government and constitution is supposed to work. As a student of government, that terrifies me. It’s a tremendously shortsighted way to battle racism or any civil rights.

By fighting to stop opposing or dissenting speech, #concernedstudent1950 assumes that they are totally right. It assumes that they have the final answer on how to cure society’s injustice, that there is literally no other opinion or speech that might produce something constructive. That, my friends, is a very very dangerous precedent.