Recently, Bill Maher, a liberal comedian and political commentator with a propensity for not mincing words, received an invitation from the University of California, Berkeley to deliver their commencement speech in December. Quite expeditiously, the liberal students of Berkeley were out in full storm to paradoxically petition for a disinvitation of Maher from campus. In the eyes of many left-wing individuals, Maher is an influential figure—at least when he’s bashing Republicans, conservatives and practicing Christians and Catholics. So why was UC Berkeley, one of the most liberal campuses in the country, against him?

Maher recently chose to address a sensitive matter that has created an ideological rift among liberals over the years: the issue of radical Islam. During an episode of Real Time with Bill Maher, the host denounced Islam as a whole for the beliefs and agendas of radical Islamists in Al Qaeda, ISIS, Boko Haram and other terrorist groups as not being noticeably different from the stated views of the religion’s majority, especially with their treatment of women, homosexuals and religious minorities. Maher also added that “Islam is the only religion that acts like the mafia that will f---ing kill you if you say the wrong thing,” among other accusations against the religion. 

These controversial statements drew the ire of students and faculty at UC Berkeley, igniting the petition movement to remove Maher from the winter commencement activities. 

Regardless of one’s personal positions on this specific matter, we, as a society, have indeed hit a breaking point with free speech on college campuses at, ironically enough, the college that galvanized the Free Speech Movement of the 1960s.  

Looking at colleges and universities across the country, one can only come away with the disconcerting notion that now, if enough people disagree with you, you can be disinvited, chastised and ostracized at college. 

Not excluding Brandeis for its shameful treatment of Ayaan Hirsi Ali last semester, college campuses have moved away from being oases of dialogue on controversial issues where a healthy dose of skepticism toward any one narrative is encouraged. They have instead mutated into, quite unfortunately, a “tolerant” liberal echo chamber that is intolerant of any opposing views.  

Most modern colleges have one thing in common in their mission statements: that free speech should be celebrated, encouraged and protected as a vital, educational tool for self and collective betterment. The principle is that discussion, even on topics that may offend or perturb, is good. Discourse helps challenge and change minds, and expanding one’s mind is the purpose of academia. 

But today, even though the UC Berkeley administration admirably continues to support Maher’s speaking at commencement this winter, colleges and universities have, as a whole, strayed from the principle of honoring free speech. In past fiascos with commencement speakers, including Condoleezza Rice at Rutgers University, International Monetary Fund CEO Christine Lagarde at Smith College and Ayaan Hirsi Ali at Brandeis, students have successfully silenced visiting speakers with contrasting views and opinions. 

Indeed, according to the Foundation of Individual Rights in Education, since just 2000 alone, the number of disinvitation incidents on university and college campuses across the country has skyrocketed nearly 500 percent. Additionally, some university administrations actually personally disinvited and removed speakers and guests they previously invited to campus.

A common red herring that opponents of certain commencement speakers like to present is that commencement is a time of celebration for the graduating class. They go on to say that whoever is speaking during the ceremony is tacitly receiving support for all of their work and positions while simultaneously taking away from the day that is supposed to belong to the graduates. However, there are two faults to this logic. First, an enormous double standard is at play. Critics of Islam like Hirsi Ali and Maher cannot attend and speak at commencement because of their “hateful” views while staunch critics of Israel and its supporters like Tony Kushner and Desmond Tutu can. Additionally, even though commencement is a day for students, wisdom from distinguished, accomplished individuals should be something that all students who claim to be intellectuals should seek, regardless of what personal opinions a guest to campus may have. 

There is more to a speaker than just their personal views—Hirsi Ali’s experiences as a Middle Eastern woman fighting for Middle Eastern women’s and girls’ rights are just as or even more important than any opinion she may have.

“Disinvitation season,” as FIRE has phrased it, will continue to have horrid impacts on students. We have learned that rather than engage those with different beliefs, it is easier to silence them. This has led to an environment not cohesive to actual learning. Indeed, this attitude destroys the academic ideals of putting even the most contentious ideas to the test of debate, helping students achieve a better understanding of the world around them and empowering scholars to revise and reconsider ideas that they had never thought to take into account before. 

When we refuse to engage with narratives that contrast our own, we become ideologically homogenous. Eventually, everyone is reduced to politically correct silence. Just like the purges in Stalinist Russia, the group of people who can freely speak their minds slowly but surely shrinks until even allies eventually become victims in the vicious cycle of censorship. The current turn away from liberal Maher, with whom liberal students almost always agree on most other topics, is emblematic of this progression within the academic anti-speech movement.

Censorship also takes out all of the fun in learning too. You know we have a problem when just as recently as 2009, University of California, Los Angeles students pressured and petitioned popular actor James Franco into not speaking at commencement that year for not being of a high enough caliber for UCLA. Who, in the eyes of students, is innocuous enough to invite to campus when even James Franco isn’t welcome anymore? Even the most frivolous of complaints is now enough to repress speakers.

Louis Brandeis once said that “it is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears.” So what are college students and faculty afraid of? Stop repressing and censoring differing opinions. End the war on learning and discussion. Debate.