To the faculty and students who say Wilfrid Laurier University's campus is not a safe place to be right now, I have three words for you.

St. Patrick's Day.

There certainly are times when Laurier is a frightening place to be, and that's always on March 17, when thousands of drunk students pack themselves so tightly onto Ezra Avenue (and some on the roofs of nearby homes) that police admit they'd have no control if there were an emergency.

How about this for scary? In March 2016, right after the big party, a Waterloo family on Albert Street was threatened with death and had a concrete cinder block thrown through their front window. Scott Leatherdale thought it was in retaliation after a keg party next door to him was broken up by authorities.

That's what I would call a truly dangerous situation.

It dwarfs the fears that exist now, in a polarized environment of heated words.

As we all know, intellectual conflict has torn the Laurier campus apart lately.

A teaching assistant named Lindsay Shepherd was reprimanded by two professors and a university official after she showed students both sides of the debate about whether people should use gender-neutral pronouns like "ze" or "they" instead of "him" and "her."

The recording she made of that meeting shone a bright and public light into the illiberal, rigid mindset of the three accusers. They told her she had created a toxic classroom environment, and that neutrally presenting students with an argument against gender-neutral pronouns was like "neutrally playing a speech by Hitler."

These comments shocked and angered the country. The university president and one of the professors apologized. But the gasoline had been poured on the fire.

The discussions now resemble an intellectual Berlin Wall which can't be crossed. One side ludicrously calls Shepherd an "alt-right" media manipulator. The other side, in its zeal to protect free speech in classrooms, has belittled the concerns of transgender students who felt threatened by the debate.

It's a mess. And what we really don't need right now is the petition that at least 60 professors and staff have signed, saying they don't feel safe on campus and need extra security.

"Faculty and staff are scared to come to work right now," said Greg Bird, a professor of sociology, cultural analysis and social theory who started the petition.

"Some professors are receiving threats, extensive rants on their work phones and work emails, and much more."

Threats are serious and ought to be reported to the police, not the university, which seems to be doing its best in an impossible situation.

But "extensive rants on their work phones?" Oh, please. That's an ordinary working day for me and plenty of other people who put their opinions out there daily. We survive, and so will you.

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Toughen up, professors. Now is not the time to complain about your own lives.

You are badly needed as leaders at this moment. You need to help students figure out how to bridge this gap. Show them — if you can — how to turn down the volume on the insults, and learn to truly listen to one another. The weapons are words, after all: Your specialty. And frankly, a lot less frightening than a concrete block.