Censorship by any other name is still censorship. There is no “we” to “platform” obnoxious ideas, and allowing something to be said is not “taking it seriously.” If an audience big enough to invite a speaker and fill a room invites a certain speaker, that fact alone justifies hearing what the speaker has to say, because that’s how we find out that enough people to fill a room want to hear those ideas spoken. There is no endorsement in allowing speech, only the opportunity to learn what ideas are abroad in the land.

Free speech absolutists - the serious ones, anyway - don’t claim that words can never harm. They claim that ignorance of what our fellow citizens think does MORE harm, that your right to hear trumps my right to keep you from hearing. Once you start trying to balance “could” and “should,” zealots fight for every inch of turf. In a world where microaggressions are a thing, the idea of balancing free speech and DEI is just plain silly.