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It should come as no surprise to regular readers of our site that students in American higher education do not have the foggiest understanding of their First Amendment rights.

Campus Reform is replete with examples of left-wing students calling for censorship of contrary viewpoints. Even mere affirmations of commitment to free speech get shot down on the grounds that they could create an unsafe space.

"Theres a dark future for our freedom that we ought to be fighting like hell to avoid."

Say something they dislike and they might try todisrupt your meeting,disinvite your speaker, orget you expelled.

And if theyre feeling particularly rowdy, they might just skip straight to punching you in the face.

At the University of California, Berkeley, socialist and anti-fascist student groups demanded the university cancel a planned appearance by Milo Yiannopoulos. When the university went ahead and hosted Yiannopoulos, rioters shut down the event and forced Yiannopoulos to evacuate for his own safety before damaging a Starbucks and a bank.

Were students and faculty embarrassed by the childish outburst? On the contrary, a series of op-eds in The Daily Californiandefended the rioting as violence as self-defense.

Campus leftists love to use this kind of language when building their narrative. They cast themselves as plucky, victimized underdogs by defining any speech they dislike as violence, thereby justifying their use of actual physical violence. They say theyre punching up. The problem with that, of course, is that its still punching.

With this kind of ignorance (or at least I hope its merely ignorance), better education about free speech and First Amendment rights are absolutely necessary. Thankfully, there are some efforts out there to defend free-speech.

Multiple state legislaturesare considering bills that would guarantee First Amendment rights on campus. The University of Chicago, whichhas an institutional commitment to free speech,has even proposed hiring free-speech deans to serve as pseudo-bouncers at events to remove disruptive students.

Its not enough, but its a start. Ideally, more universities should be working to educate their students on free speech, not slashing enrollment like UCLAs doing to a popular course onfree speech in the workplace, where students are so eager to take the course that they are literally sitting in the aisles.

Maybe if the University did so, they wouldnt have studentsblocking access to books ordisrupting speakers.

While all of these incidents may seem minor, todays students are tomorrows leaders. The first Millennials are now getting into Congress, and in a few decades time, the Supreme Courtwhich makes the rulings involving freedom of speechwill be made up of Justices who were educated in this kind of environment.

Thats a dark future for our freedom and one we ought to be fighting like hell to avoid.

Follow the author of this article on Twitter: @SterlingCBeard

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College: A 'safe space' for censorship - Campus Reform