If we have a legal right to feel emotionally safe and un-offended, we have a legal obligation to keep silent

From On College Campuses, The Danger Of Playing It Safe With Ideas by Wendy Kaminer. An structured defense of free speech everywhere under attack from those losing political power (see Supreme Court Justice Kagan and The New York Times).

For me, in a free and open society, safety means protection from physical, not emotional harm. Besides, strangers and ideological opponents can’t hurt my feelings. Only family members and close friends can wound or threaten me emotionally, (and no laws can or should try to stop them from doing so.)

Outside our circles of intimates, freedom requires a willingness to hear and tolerate wildly divergent, dissenting ideas as well as insults. If we have a right not to be offended, then we have no right to give offense. That means we have no reliable, predictable right to speak, because in diverse societies there are no universal opinions or beliefs that are universally inoffensive. If we have a legal right to feel emotionally safe and un-offended, we have a legal obligation to keep silent, which we violate at our peril. Emotionally safe societies are dangerous places for people who speak.