The other day I was at Trent University in Peterborough.

I was giving a talk on why student unions and political groups should be held accountable for their use of student and taxpayer money.

During the question-and-answer period, I inadvertently offended a bright young woman.

She’d suggested removing automatic student funds from political groups would remove political discourse from campus altogether.

Of course not, I responded.

I was a student activist who never received student money, yet was completely immersed in politics. Passionate people debate, regardless.

I said people like her, who are zesty and politically active ... Then I stopped.

She looked shocked and appalled.

I asked her: “Did you just get offended when I said ‘people like you’?”

“Yes,” she said. “I kind of did.”

Later, when a woman who’d interrupted others, including me, was interrupted by another young man, she asked him to please let her talk and “respect her safe space”.

These “bubble kids” aren’t toddlers. They’re university students.

University campuses have become sandboxes of political correctness and censorship, far removed from reality.

I was allowed to speak at Trent, but a group of students seeking to put up a “free speech wall” — a piece of paper on which students could write whatever they want — were banned, because “it can create an unsafe and inaccessible environment, particularly for students from minority groups,” according to the student union.

What’s more accessible than paper on which anyone can write anything?

While unfashionable speech is censored, it’s been replaced with a series of ever-changing trendy words.

It’s hard to keep up.

Since I visit campuses rather regularly, I’ll give you the scoop.

The concerning words to look out for now are: “trigger warning,” “trauma” and “safe space”.

At Ryerson University, two white student journalists were turned away from an event held by a “racialized” group funded by all students, because it was a “safe space." A journalism student wrote an op-ed defending the segregation, titled, “Ethnic minorities deserve safe spaces without white people."

At the University of Ottawa, a professor speaking about how “rape culture” affects men was heckled and insulted by protesting students until they finally pulled the fire alarm.

The students justified their actions saying the talk created an “unsafe atmosphere."

A similar debate was scheduled south of the border at Brown University around issues involving sexual assault.

A student proclaimed it might be “triggering” to some.

So, they set up a “safe space.”

The New York Timesnoted it was “equipped with cookies, coloring books, bubbles, Play-Doh, calming music, pillows, blankets and a video of frolicking puppies, as well as students and staff members trained to deal with trauma.”

It’s no wonder recent graduates have created a market for “adult daycares,” one of which exists in New York, where adults pay up to $999-a-month to take naps and play with glitter glue.

“Safe spaces” imply that everywhere else is unsafe. They’re places where students can hide from ideas that might “trigger” them.

There are Canadians who have suffered actual trauma, and who continuously suffer trauma.

Brave soldiers, police officers — and yes, some students.

This new “trauma” trivializes that, and provides a loaded gun for censorship.

If an idea offends you, suck it up and challenge it, refute it out in the open.

If it’s a genuine trigger for trauma — a real mental health concern and violence risk — university administrators are obligated to uphold the law and ensure the campus is a safe space.

But university campuses shouldn’t be places where young people go to escape from the real world, coddled by blankets and puppies, shielding them from words.

They should be a free marketplaces of ideas, where new and differing points of view are encouraged and debated.

Otherwise, we’re compromising intellectualism; allowing adults to regress to childhood, plugging their ears and stomping their feet until the bad ideas go away.

And when they graduate — then what?

I have three scary words for, dare I say, people like this.

Get a grip.