I was very excited sitting in the third row of a packed auditorium at Brown University in the fall of 2019 – my freshman year. I made a point of showing up early to see Charlie Kirk up close and be able to ask a question. I was, and remain, a big fan.

But the rest of the campus was less than pleased with the conservative Kirk’s invitation to speak. Before he arrived, posters that disfigured Kirk’s face and portrayed him with a Hitlerian mustache or called him a “racist grifter” or “fascist” littered Brown’s lecture halls and dormitory common spaces. ...