University presidents are asked to stop activities on campus in the name of just about every imaginable social, political and economic injustice of the last 100 years. Then they are labelled by how they respond.

As any university president knows, the labels come with the job, and they tend to get trotted out in the same recurring situation. When a polarizing figure is scheduled to speak on campus, the university president is asked to ban the speaker.

When the president refuses in the name of “freedom of speech,” the president is too often called-out as insensitive to the case being made and, in not banning a speaker, is accused of supporting whatever allegedly heinous or repulsive idea is at the centre of the controversy. Administrators accumulate these labels like destination stickers on the luggage of their careers. More often than not, it’s a sign that they are doing their jobs well.

For what it’s worth, the definition of “apologist” is “a person who offers an argument in defence of something controversial.” By that definition, I have been an apologist for only one cause: freedom of speech.

On many occasions, I gave my administrator’s green light to events featuring speakers whose ideas I personally loathed. And I did so because freedom of speech is a core defining value for any free society. Democracy cannot function without it. And it is the role of the university to be the place where free speech is tested, in an atmosphere of serious discussion, with robust argumentation and counter-examination.

The argument for curtailing speech on campus invariably rests upon the misguided idea that a university should be more restrictive than other public spaces: that people can say whatever they want in the town square or the park soapbox, but that not all ideas meet the learned standards of the university campus. What does it say about a university, if a speaker can say something on the steps to city hall but can’t say it on the steps to the university library?

Instead, what sets the university apart — what should set it apart — is the level of scrutiny it can bring to any debate or discussion. The true test of any idea is whether it can withstand broad intellectual criticism, from as many diverse perspectives as possible, in a free-speech environment.

It’s no surprise that supporters of retrograde ideas make it a badge of honour to be barred from speaking on campuses. They don’t want to defend their propositions in places where their half-truths, faulty logic and inconsistencies would be exposed and their ideas would wither away.

The call to restrict speech on campus often comes from marginalized groups, whether along lines of gender, race or sexuality. They object on the basis of their right to a campus that is free of intimidation and discrimination. This is a genuine concern, and there are many ways in which universities can better address systemic discrimination within their institutions.

Classroom practices need to make space for a broader diversity of voices. Faculty and student diversity must be better represented in all governance structures: student unions, faculties, administrations, senates and boards of governors.

But a university cannot protect marginalized groups from exposure to ideas, even oppressive or discriminatory ones. What it can do is ensure there is space to counter oppressive ideas with the passions of reason and intellect.

It is frustrating, even infuriating, to think that oppressive ideas are never laid to rest — that colonialism, for instance, or chauvinism, must be re-litigated over and over again, and that the hard-won rights and freedoms of women, blacks, Indigenous communities or transgendered people are never set in stone.

But from my experience, the best way to ensure that an oppressive idea will thrive is to suppress it. When that happens, those who support oppressive ideas simply operate in the shadows, reaching out from their hiding place to find like-minded people and continue building their following. Meanwhile, proponents of progressive ideals, sheltered from exposure to their opponents, lose touch with the principles and arguments that underlie their own beliefs.

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Even if you suppress their expression, bad ideas never die. Those who oppose them must never lose the ability to confront them peaceably but forcefully, to turn them inside out, and to speak convincingly against them — and in favour of their own perspectives — on campus and beyond.

Sheldon Levy was formerly President of Ryerson University and Ontario Deputy Minister of Advanced Education and Skills Development. He is now President of NEXT Canada, which provides mentorship, education and networking for promising entrepreneurs.