College students are halfway through the fall semester and a number of major free speech disputes have rocked campuses across the country.

Students have shouted down speakers in a series of high-profile incidents, including recent examples at Columbia University and the University of Michigan. And while much of this behavior is associated with liberal students, a group of pro-Trump hecklers shouted down a talk at Whittier College by California attorney general Xavier Becerra.

The problem has reached such a critical level that the University of Chicago recently invited college presidents and provosts from around the country to discuss the issue and how it can be resolved.

To me, the issue itself is clear.

By and large, the current generation of students have indicated they do not understand or agree with basic concepts of the First Amendment. So these students have either received a substandard civics education or have deliberately chosen to ignore certain portions of that education.

An insufficient understanding of the First Amendment is clear across the country and, in turn, is threatening core American values. Colleges have become ground zero for this issue. Far too many collegiate institutions have engaged in a mingling of political correctness and censorship, when the public interest would be much better served if they played the more traditional role of serving as places for the free exchange of ideas.

It would be easy to dismiss this as the fear of an old curmudgeon well removed from a college campus. But as a recent college graduate, less than a year removed from Wisconsin’s Beloit College, I can confirm the issue is real and serious.

I witnessed it first-hand, as the tenets of the First Amendment were directly maligned by educators.

In the aftermath of some anonymous posters containing white nationalist slogans, Beloit convened a panel to initiate a campus-wide discussion on the content of these posters.

A good idea was soon laid to waste as attendees were informed by a member of the panel that invoking the First Amendment or free speech during this discussion would be seen as tacit expressions of support for white supremacy. The effect was chilling.

Rather than leading an open and informative discussion, the panel created an atmosphere in which it was difficult, if not impossible, for participants to speak freely.

This story is emblematic of a growing problem on college campuses. At a growing number of colleges and universities, groups of students, faculty, and administrators have begun to drive campus policy in troubling directions by placing sharper limits on commitments academic freedom and free speech.

Read last week’s ‘Free Speech For Thee?’ column

This was illustrated during a recent panel hosted at Kenyon College, entitled “Hate Speech and the Limits of Free Expression.” The discussion featured Ulrich Baer of New York University and Stephanie Fryberg of the University of Washington arguing on behalf of limiting free speech, while Charles C.W. Cooke of the National Review Online argued in favor of absolute free speech.

In the debate, Cooke was confronted with arguments that have become standard on college campuses, namely that defending free speech rights is merely a slickly packaged defense of “hate speech.” Baer and Fryberg argued that rather than allowing free speech, colleges should provide means of censoring forms of speech they have decided are reprehensible.

In this regard, both Beloit and Kenyon are leading the charge with their “Bias Response Teams.” These groups, which are springing up at colleges around the country, have been established to respond to incidents of perceived bias. At Beloit, offenders are subject to “educational opportunities.” At other institutions — there are more than 230 Bias Response Teams at schools around the country — the punishments have sometimes been more direct and severe.

Far too many colleges and universities have elected to combat intolerance with intolerance. If we wish for our nation’s students to become more willing to hear uncomfortable or even vehemently disagreeable ideas with a certain degree of decorum, then our collegiate institutions must change.

They can begin by reconsidering their role in the marketplace of ideas. A college should facilitate this exchange and allow students to reach their own conclusions. They must resist the temptation to engage in political conformity when that conformity is at the expense of the principles on which the country was founded.

What colleges should not do, however, is prohibit certain viewpoints, either directly through policy or with speech chilling threats. This forces students away from the true idea marketplace. To do these things is to dishonor the mission of any true academic institution.

But if colleges and universities continue on their present course where issues of free speech are concerned, students will suffer and act out in ways that are detrimental not only to the system of higher education, but the country as a whole.

Contact Will Tomer at wtomer@theblade.com, 419-724-6404, or on Twitter @WillTomer.

First Published October 20, 2017, 9:00 p.m.