I don’t share the view that American college students want to be protected from ideas that make them uncomfortable. Just the opposite. Over the past few years, our students have addressed topics that make many people very uncomfortable indeed — racism, sexual assault, religious persecution. These are some of the toughest problems facing society today, and we do not shy away from them.

As for “safe spaces” — the term is used in so many different ways that it is impossible to discuss it without being precise about its meaning. The term emerged from the women’s movement nearly 50 years ago to refer to forums where women’s rights issues were discussed. Then it was extended to denote spaces where violence and harassment against the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer community would not be tolerated, and then extended yet again to mean places where students from marginalized groups can come together to feel comfortable discussing their experiences and just being themselves.

If this is what a safe space means, then, yes, Brown has them. Proudly. And even the campuses that decry these spaces have them also. I’m not talking about rooms with Play-Doh and coloring books like one set up by Brown campus organizers specifically as a resource to support survivors of sexual assault in one instance some years ago. There have been many unfortunate mischaracterizations in the media of the intent of that support space as a so-called shield from ideas.