I’ll begin by speaking for myself.

College students who read my work should know (to use Harper’s example) that I wish Damien would have confronted his professor; that if a professor stereotypes a student because of his or her race, I do not believe it would be “outrageous” to complain; and that if your professor or college punishes you for saying that you were treated in a racist manner, I believe you’ve been wronged, and that your institution is impinging on your freedom of expression. In fact, even if your suspicion of racism turned out to be unfounded, I would defend your right to articulate it.

What’s more, if activists quadrupled the size of last semester’s protests while reorienting them toward relatively damaging racial injustices––and away from anti-speech actions, emails about Halloween, and appropriation in dining hall food––I would cheer. I have all sorts of disagreements with the tactics, assumptions, and instances of illiberalism that characterized many student protests, but I very much want to hear accounts of unjust policies on college campuses and share the end of fighting racism and making higher education more inclusive.

The ACLU and FIRE are the two most prominent groups that fight for free speech rights on campus. Both would certainly object to a college punishing students for alleging racism, even if its analysts disagreed with the substance of those allegations.

In the Yale debate, Wendy Kaminer, an outspoken defender of free speech on campus, declared, in direct contradiction to Harper’s assumptions about her views:

You guys have suggested that we are somehow saying that student protests are violations of free speech. I strongly defend the right of students to protest anything they want to protest in however many uncivil terms they want to use … I don't think any of us would disagree with you, Shaun, about the really bad climate on some campus, and about the kind of bias that some students experience. I don't think any of us are saying that's not real. I don't think any of us are saying that's something that shouldn't be protested. We're simply saying something very different.

Here’s Columbia University’s John McWhorter, also arguing in favor of the proposition:

To be constructive, I just want to throw something in here, because I don't want to be misinterpreted and I don't want Wendy to be misinterpreted. I think it's time for a brief anecdote. It is fall of 1984. I'm at Rutgers University. I walk into an intermediate German class. First thing that the teacher says is, "I think you've got the wrong class." No. There could only have been one reason. It was quite clear—that woman hated me for the whole semester. Now, this was straight up racism. Now, to be honest, I didn't walk around crying. I didn't remember it for a very long time. I kind of enjoyed how backwards she was, and now she's dead and I'm sitting here. That’s a whole other thing, how do you respond to these things? But more to the point. If that happened to my daughter today, I would hope she would complain. So, I'm not saying that these sorts of things are not to be talked about, and where something really nasty happens, it is not to be shouted to the heavens.

It is very difficult to find a free-speech advocate who believes that racism isn’t to be talked about. Who are the ones ostensibly holding that position? Levying the charge without citing specific examples adds more heat than light and elides the fact that while a few marginal bullies can be found espousing any idiotic view under the sun, there is no aversion to antiracism among the mainstream of free-speech defenders. It is especially vexing that those who allege a plot to silence students never acknowledge the many prominent free-speech advocates who have clearly and unambiguously supported students speaking up however they see fit. When I see Greg Lukianoff criticized on Twitter, I wish that I could append a graphic showing how many students of color his organization has fought for over the years.