The controversy seems to have been sparked because some students want more control over the content covered in their classrooms with a particular emphasis on triggering content. This is a distinct but related issue.<p>There is also the not new issue of students protesting speakers they think have objectionable views worth protesting on campus. This bothers some free speech advocates even though it is an expression of free speech. Something something totalitarianism, slippery slope, etc. I find it an overreaction from the right. In my personal opinion, speech is free when it is free to be in conflict.<p>So really there are very many issues developing right now on college campuses and they are all conflated together because the point is to have an enemy to hate (&quot;SJW&#x27;s&quot; or &quot;the regressive left&quot;). So diverse issues and points of views are agglomerated into one ball of evil to hate. Some people refuse to allow college students, barely adults, to be wrong or misguided and learn from their mistakes. Also those same people like to pretend college students have immense power to censor speech at a scale that threatens what they find good in society.<p>There&#x27;s also a certain zealotry in defense of the status quo which is probably older than history itself.