Serious question, when did campus speakers start needing police escorts just to walk to class?

Last month at Ohio State, I watched a guest lecturer get rushed through a side door by three campus cops because a group of students found out he'd criticized affirmative action in a podcast. The talk itself was open to the public, but faculty had to check IDs at the door and phones were banned, which felt way more like a security briefing than a seminar. I get that tensions are high, but it made me wonder if we've crossed a line where the actual debate is gone before anyone even sits down. Has anyone else seen this shift where the setup itself kills the conversation before it starts?

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victor75925d ago

Phones were banned and IDs checked at the door" really says it all. If the setup already treats everyone like a potential threat, what's the point of even calling it a debate? I gotta ask, at what point does the security become the actual message, louder than anything the speaker could say? We're so busy guarding against a few loud people that we've turned every talk into a fortress, and that just tells the quiet folks in the middle that they're part of the problem too. Where's the line between keeping people safe and just scaring everyone into silence before the first question even gets asked?