I don’t agree totally — I think there is a place for safe spaces & there is often a need for trigger warnings, but such things don’t take a huge effort to do, you just stick TW & whatever it is you think might set people off, put the rest under a read more cut (Livejournal & Tumblr implement these rather well). But you are right that yes it is impacting free speech. I think we could treat these things a bit like physical violence — there are places where physical violence is OK, with certain rules: you get in a boxing ring, you expect to take some punches. You walk down the street, ideally, you don’t. You enter a mosh pit, there’s a risk you’ll get hurt. You enter a university lecture theatre to hear a lecture about a subject, you may get exposed to triggering ideas. Put a notice on the door, and a note in the prospectus — this course is not for the faint of heart. Dangerous ideas discussed. Here be dragons. And if you are of a delicate disposition, there should be other courses you can pick that won’t send you into a PTSD flashback. Again, you wouldn’t get into a boxing ring if you’re not up for some boxing, but you wouldn’t shut down the sport just because you’re not a boxer, right?