Commentary It’s not uncommon to hear claims that language is tantamount to violence, that words can cause physical harm. This concept originated in academia, taking root in the 1980s and 1990s primarily among student activists and radical professors. Today’s campuses are littered with the consequences of this ideology. Trigger warnings, safe spaces, language police, speaker shutdowns, and even cry closets abound in academia, implying that students require protection from ideas. These policies call into question the strength of students’ characters, teaching young people that they’re so delicate that even words can wound. But protection ultimately inflicts intellectual harm upon students. When controversial ideas are stifled, difficult conversations never happen in the first place. Students lose out on exposure to new ways of thinking. Preconceptions go unchallenged. They’re robbed of the opportunity to develop better fluency and nuance in their own arguments. Conflation of speech with violence is no longer relegated …