The protestors who disrupted the Yale panel discussion were loathsome, but their main crime was actively blocking speech, not in failing to listen. After all, many audience members wanted to actually hear the discussion that the protestors silenced. The protestors thereby quashed the rights of both speakers and listeners. Furthermore, the protestors inhibited the formation of future panels that might have, little by little, chipped away at the excesses of the current orthodoxy. Even an audience that passively "tuned out" the speech would not have had the same chilling effect.
Good essay, but one point of disagreement:
The protestors who disrupted the Yale panel discussion were loathsome, but their main crime was actively blocking speech, not in failing to listen. After all, many audience members wanted to actually hear the discussion that the protestors silenced. The protestors thereby quashed the rights of both speakers and listeners. Furthermore, the protestors inhibited the formation of future panels that might have, little by little, chipped away at the excesses of the current orthodoxy. Even an audience that passively "tuned out" the speech would not have had the same chilling effect.