As NYU seniors eagerly await the announcement of their spring 2015 commencement speaker, a recent rise in students attempting to veto administrations’ choice of speaker at universities nationwide is gaining attention. According to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, the number of attempts in the last 15 years to uninvite or heckle speakers has grown from 6 to 30 per year. The protests follow party lines — with speakers who are perceived to be conservative are uninvited almost 3 times as much as liberal guests. This is concerning, as a  student’s university years should be characterized by exposure to a wide range of opinions, particularly those the student disagrees with. Protesting a speaker solely because they represent an opposing viewpoint is an affront to free speech.

These protests have come in several different forms, ranging from formal “disinvitations” to heckling during speeches. When former New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly spoke at Brown University in October 2013, both students and community members were so disruptive in protest of the city’s controversial stop-and-frisk policy that the lecture was stopped after 30 minutes. More commonly, however, university administrations disinvite the speaker or the speaker backs out after highly publicized protests. Condoleezza Rice turned down an invitation to speak at the spring 2014 commencement for Rutgers University after students protested her involvement in the war in Iraq, even though the administration stood by their invitation.

While NYU students have never scared away a high-profile speaker, students have expressed disappointment in past choices. This exponential trend needs to be addressed nationally ahead of 2015 commencement speaker choices so that students can be exposed to a variety of opinions.

There is a link between this trend and the overarching cultural shift of various social media websites functioning as filter bubbles. The term was coined by author Eli Pariser, who noticed that Facebook hid posts from conservative friends if users consistently clicked on links from liberal friends. Facebook’s goal is to create a more personalized news feed, but users end up in a homogenous echo chamber. It is perhaps unsurprising that more college students are protesting speakers who espouse opinions different from their own when their social networks are suppressing the views of those who disagree with them, too.

Although the overwhelming majority of students support free speech in theory, those who protest visiting speakers do not reflect this belief. If students are to advocate for free speech, they must uphold it unselectively. Advocates for free speech should not try to eliminate opportunities for unpopular views to be heard, and should in fact encourage them. Exposure to dissenting ideas is especially critical to intellectual honesty and growth in an educational setting.

A version of this article appeared in the Wednesday, Feb. 4 print edition. Email the WSN Editorial Board at [email protected].