No one has the right to a ‘safe place’ at a public institution

The other day, I saw a video on the internet of some people at Yale yelling at someone. I didn’t know the full context, but it goes something like this:

Yale’s Intercultural Affairs Committee sent an email to the students of Yale telling them to be tasteful when picking Halloween costumes so they don’t offend anyone.

However, someone else sent out an email telling students to decide whether or not their costume was appropriate, rather than relying on the administration to tell them right from wrong.

A few students got mad and decided to go talk to the Dean about this, and they ended up getting into an argument about free speech with a man named Nicholas Christakis, a master of Silliman College. In this case, master is a fancy term for “adviser.”

In the video, he defends himself from the words of angry students by saying that he should not be a master because of the email telling people to decide for themselves. Their main concern is that Yale wouldn’t be a “safe space” if people can wear any costume they want.

Because of that statement, the argument quickly became about free speech. In the video I saw, one part spoke volumes to me.

You can hear Nicholas Christakis say, “I stand behind free speech, yes I do,” to which a young man responds, “Even when it’s offensive?”

That phrase struck a chord with me, because it shows the kind of mentality that is making our society a bunch of babies.

I could care less if someone gets offended when I say something.

As a regular person, I can walk down the street, look at people and yell, “Hey there, George Bush did 9/11, Hitler did nothing wrong, and I hate everyone. Have a nice day!”

I have that right because it was guaranteed to me from birth. Every single person in this country has the irrefutable right to say whatever they want, even if it’s offensive, crude, stupid, or just plain wrong.

Hell, I have to listen to people say, “Donald Trump will be the best president ever.”

I may be screaming internally, that doesn’t mean I’m going to shut down their right to say it. I don’t have to agree with it, and I can be offended by it if I want to be. But at the end of the day, nobody is going to care about how offended I am.

People can go complain about it on the internet and hope to God that some social justice warrior will see it and hopefully repost it to their blog, but that still will not do a thing. Sometimes in life, you have to accept people’s right to say whatever they want to say, even if you don’t agree with it.

You will never, ever have your 100 percent certified “safe space” because they don’t exist. With over seven billion people on the face of the earth, there are a lot of people out there every day who say a lot of horrible things. And yet, somehow, the world hasn’t exploded yet. I think we will be fine for a few more millennia.