I find myself in rather an unusual position. I’m a busy journalist — published regularly in most of Canada’s leading newspapers and magazines, a weekly panelist on television and radio, an author with Random House — but for 18 months I have been back at university, pursuing a master’s degree at Trinity College, University of Toronto.

I say this because of the quite extraordinary amount of media coverage of the Lindsay Shepherd case at Wilfrid Laurier University, where a young teaching assistant was reprimanded to the point of tears after she showed a short clip in her classroom of a television interview with the rather self-consciously controversial and increasingly bizarre Jordan Peterson.

Shepherd later received an apology from the university and is now becoming a young star within so-called free speech circles. It does surprise me that after several years within her chosen subject’s community and culture she didn’t realize what would be considered, rightly or wrongly, unacceptable, and that she thought to record the meeting — I would not have had such foresight — or knew how to make it so public, but nevertheless she was treated incorrectly.

Obviously what happened was far worse than the mass slaughter of 305 innocent people in Egypt, otherwise we wouldn’t have had almost every columnist in Canada devoting so much time and righteous anger to the Laurier martyrdom. It was also staggering that in what is supposed to be a diverse press there was almost no break in the strident consensus that campuses are places where only Marxist propaganda is acceptable and free speech under perennial siege.

Oddly enough, as a white, middle-aged, male, Christian I’ve simply not found this. I speak my mind — as meagre as that might be — on campus, I have political and religious debates with staff and students, I watch other, much younger people doing the same. And how sadly paradoxical it is that in the past week anybody who has dared to question the conventional wisdom about free speech at universities has been abused and condemned in the name of — well — free speech.

I don’t know all of the details of the Lindsay Shepherd case and I’m sorry she was moved to tears. That simply should never happen. But given that the context of her case was trans issues and language, I wonder how young, vulnerable trans students are feeling right now. I’ve been sent numerous emails from trans kids and their supporters about the current situation that are heartbreaking but I’ve not seen much coverage of this.

What I have seen are numerous conservative, and sometimes not so conservative, writers making blanket statements about contemporary colleges, when in fact the situation is nuanced, varied, complex, and, as is often the case, never the jaundiced reality of people with an agenda.

It’s also rather ironic in that some of those championing Shepherd are themselves not the most pristine advocates for liberty of expression. I can tell you from personal experience that social conservatives in particular are past masters at censorship, and try, and often succeed, in silencing those with whom they disagree. It’s often more about protecting one’s own right to speak rather than that of other people.

There are clearly challenges at universities, just as there are throughout society. We have, thank goodness, made enormous progress in expunging some of the worst excesses of social rudeness and abuse from common conversation. This is sometimes tendentiously referred to as political correctness, but try asking a member of a sexual or ethnic minority what life was like before it. It’s also true that sometimes matters go too far, but then liberation does have to breathe, and the powerful seldom give up their power willingly.

No young person should feel intimidated at a university, whether it be a teaching assistant or a trans 19-year-old, a supporter of Israel or an anti-Zionist, a socialist or a conservative. There are no easy fixes, yet assorted columnists uttering homogenous harrumphs from distant experiences and privileges might satisfy a fearful older generation but brings us no closer to refining the situation. That they are joined by some sinister types trying to exploit the situation only makes it far worse.

The academic sky is not falling and free speech is far from dead. Sober reflection and moderate response, however, might need a shot in the arm.

Michael Coren is a Toronto writer.