Readers React: A refresher on free speech for college students

To the editor: Whether the Black Lives Matter movement has or has not contributed to the incidence of rioting and attacks on police — as one person wrote in the student newspaper of Wesleyan University in Connecticut — the proposition itself must be made. The hypothesis must be tested. (“At U.S. colleges, a failing grade in free speech,” editorial, Oct. 28)

If the rule of law and the safety of students of color is of paramount concern, then someone — everyone — must look out for those factors in our society that incite lawlessness.

By limiting speech — any speech — protesters prevent such hypotheses from being made and the search for truth never gets conducted.

The exhortation to limit speech is contrary to the spirit of inquiry that is the very heart of education.

Would the political correctness police have joined the chorus accusing Galileo of “heretical depravity” for his hypothesis that the Earth revolved around the sun?

Kevin T. Freeman, Huntington Beach

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook