When Sessions in his speech on Tuesday decried the alleged transformation of the American university “into an echo chamber of political correctness and homogenous thought, a shelter for fragile egos,” the ego he was talking about probably was not his own. But in the end, it wasn’t Sessions whose speech was stymied. It was those who disagreed with him.

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The day before Sessions’s speech, some students who had RSVP’d for the occasion received an email informing them that the invitation had been revoked. Instead, only those who had attended past events held by the host group — the conservative Georgetown Center for the Constitution — would be granted admittance. So would scholars at the center, students of the center’s director and some “personal/VIP” guests. The change improved Sessions’s chances of encountering a sympathetic audience, but that didn’t matter much in the end. The attorney general only took questions submitted ahead of time.

There was more. School administrators informed students and staff that they had “designated three zones on campus where protesters may gather … to be heard and seen before and during” Sessions’s appearance. Those caught sneakily speaking elsewhere would be directed to move to the sanctioned areas. In the end, protesters stood in one of those approved locations and linked arms.

Georgetown’s response is an extreme example of a reality that often gets lost in the college campus wars: The right to free speech cuts both ways. An entire campus, not just bits and pieces of it, should be a free-speech zone. That means controversial guests get to talk, audiences get to listen and protesters get to protest. It’s an obvious affront to open expression when demonstrators shout down a speaker. It’s just as wrong to surreptitiously shut up an audience that might want to challenge the speaker.