Pennsylvania lawmakers are considering legislative action to determine what, if anything, is needed to control free speech, particularly on college campuses.

What we need, apparently, is a heavy dose of education into how it actually works.

Representatives from the Pennsylvania’s public and private universities, along with the Foundation for Independent Rights in Education (FIRE) discussed free speech issues on campus with the Senate’s policy committee last week, a controversy that far too often pops up as colleges and universities seek ways to present balanced and diverse speakers in campus settings.

There are times voices scheduled to appear on campus don’t always match up with political views of the majority of the campus community.

And that’s OK. Or at least it should be.

FIRE identified 29 speech dis-invitation controversies on college campuses last year, highlighted by the September cancellation of conservative activist Milo Yiannopoulos at the University of California in Berkley. According to FIRE, there have been 10 appearances called off in Pennsylvania over the past seven years.

This is an unfortunate and troubling trend. College campuses should always be a place where ideas about a variety of subjects, popular or not, are heard.

But consider this statement from last week’s hearing: “Research shows us that increasingly students prefer an environment that shields them from expression they find offensive,” Dr. Valerie Harrison, senior advisor for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion at Temple University, told the lawmakers last week, who then said, “We have to educate our community.”

Here’s a free, basic civics lesson: Free speech is free for everybody and protection of that right is so important it’s in the very first amendment.

Just because you don’t agree, doesn’t make it any less protected, or, as the cry is far too often utilized, fake. It’s the messy part of the First Amendment for a lot of people, particularly for a demographic that hasn’t been told “no” enough.

“To suppress free speech is a double wrong,” Frederick Douglass said. “It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker.”

We understand there is a renewed sense of activism brewing in America. We welcome that; everyone should.

But that renewed spirit needs to come with a vital understanding that opposing views and opinions deserve to be heard and protected.

— The Daily Item, Sunbury, Pa. (TNS)