Some of that so-called activism seems to be closer to suppressing any thoughts someone dislikes. Removing that from university life is not cool, that „activism“ itself went off the rails too.
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Being annoyed, inconvenienced, or even negatively impacted by the speech acts of others is by design. To throw that out is to make a calculation that without freedom of speech, your perspective will be the natural default without activism to upset it. A dangerous assumption.
Sure, agreed. But groups and institutions taking even a dime of tax money should not get to place a thumb on the scales of those arguments. US universities, in particular, chose a side and then silenced all opposing viewpoints.
It was inevitable that the silenced would eventually mobilise, and they did. And now the group has to abandon their arguments about allowing "punching up" and instead pontificate on "free speech".
Myself (and many others) argued over the last decade and more that the pendulum always swings back, so lets be a little less extreme in the left/right argument. I, on this site, got labeled a non-thinking right-winger apologist for pointing out that the mainstream views on transgender for minors does not match the views that the powers-that-be were pushing.
You can't push for normalising the silencing of views for well over a decade without you yourself eventually falling victim to the same normalisation.
Your comment surprises me, because at this point, there really isn't any contention over the fact that universities have been doing exactly this.
So while I am assuming that you don't actually know, I'll give you a short list of links (I'm not doing research that takes me more than 5m).
> What did US universities do to "silence all opposing viewpoints" on any issues?
https://www.forbes.com/sites/musbahshaheen/2024/06/05/stop-r...
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/blog/diversity-statemen...
https://www.thefire.org/news/anti-free-speech-trends-campus-...
https://www.thefire.org/facultyreport
https://www.hrdive.com/news/stop-requiring-diversity-stateme...
(UK, but still the same idea) https://www.thetimes.com/uk/education/article/kathleen-stock...
https://www.thefire.org/news/speaker-disinvited-uncomfortabl...
https://www.businessinsider.com/list-of-disinvited-speakers-...
And, finally, some charts: https://www.thefire.org/news/blogs/eternally-radical-idea/ne...
Analysis of the data FIRE has collected reveals a clear political trend in the likelihood that a speaker will be targeted with a disinvitation effort. Speakers are far more likely to face disinvitation efforts from opponents to their political left than from those to their right. Since 2000, those behind the disinvitation efforts targeted speakers with views more conservative than their own nearly three times more frequently (97 attempts) than they targeted speakers with views more liberal than their own (36 attempts).
It pains me to say it, but it aligns with my experience.
> Did they kick students out of school because of their viewports? Claw back their financial aid? Get them deported? Physically harm them?
None of that is required to silence opposing views.
> I sure don't remember things like that happening in widespread manner to conservative students, let alone happening in a way that was organized top-down by the universities' leadership.
"Allowing only one viewpoint" doesn't require that the university administration has a top-down directive to expel students, only that they allow one viewpoint and silence the other.
Once again, that this happened is not in dispute, so I am left wondering where you were going with this response.