Free speech has been under attack by the political correctness police for quite some time, but there is a rising number of college students who expect to be protected from “scary” ideas. The problem is that the ideas aren’t scary at all.

Take Brown University senior, Katherine Byron, for instance. She’s a special snowflake, delicate and unable to sit through a lecture with a view point different than her own. As a member of the Sexual Assault Task Force, she has made it her duty to make Brown be a safe place for victims of rape of rape and sexual assault – free from anything that might force memories of their trauma. When she heard about a debate between feminist Jessica Valenti and libertarian Wendy McElroy, who was likely to criticize the phrase “rape culture”, Byron was upset.

“Bringing a speaker like that could serve to invalidate people’s experiences,” she said. “It could be damaging.”

Really? I am a survivor of severe domestic abuse and assault, and I suffer from terrible panic attacks. Guess what? I don’t need people to worry about “invalidating” my experiences, and it isn’t damaging to hear opinions that I don’t agree with. That’s because I have risen above my abuser. He can’t control me anymore. Yes, he hurt me, and yes, he abused me, but he lost his control, and that is what rape survivors need to hear – not that there is a “rape culture” and that all men are out to rape and assault you.

After meeting with administrators, Byron and fellow task force members announced, along with Brown’s president, Christina H. Paxson, that the university would offer a simultaneous talk to provide “research and facts” about “the role of culture in sexual assault.” There would also be a “safe space” for students to escape to if the initial debate became to taxing on their sensitive little minds. The safe space would offer cookies, coloring books, bubbles, Play-Doh, calming music, pillows, blankets, and a video of “frolicking puppies,” as well as students and staff trained to deal with trauma.

Emma Hall, a junior, rape survivor, and “sexual assault peer educator,” helped set up the room and worked during the debate. At one point she went into the lecture, which was packed, but she had to leave because the ideas being bandied around were too hurtful and harmful for her.

“I was feeling bombarded by a lot of viewpoints that really go against my dearly and closely held beliefs,” Emma Hall said.

The problem isn’t that one such space existed. The problem is the rising number of college students who expect this type of “safe space” to be available to them every time ideas might offend them.

I know where this crap starts. It starts with all of the helicopter mothers at the park who won’t let their kids wander more than 2 feet from them. Or, the political correct police in schools that have renamed sitting Indian Style to sitting “Criss Cross Applesauce.” Children are actively being taught that unpopular speech, or speech that might offend someone, is evil, and that they need to have special spaces to cuddle puppies to deal with the trauma. We are truly turning our kids into a bunch of wimps and pansies who are unable to deal with adversity, and then we are amazed when a female college graduate goes on a profanity laced rant on social media over a job rejection based on her unprofessional attire.

These perpetually offended and traumatized student groups are popping up everywhere. At Columbia University, a group of students called Everyone Allied Against Homophobia, rallied to stick a flier under every dorm room door on campus urging for safe spaces. The flier read, “I want this space to be a safer space,” with instructions to tape it to their windows. They also published the flier and an editorial posted in the student newspaper, asserting that “making spaces safer is about learning how to be kind to each other.”

Keep in mind these students are probably Leftists that support the murder of unborn babies. Let that sink in. We can’t offend anyone’s sensibilities, but we can kill babies.

Last fall, the president of Smith College, Kathleen McCartney, was forced to apologize for “causing students and faculty to be ‘hurt’ when she failed to object to a racial epithet uttered by a fellow panel member at an alumnae event.” Wendy Kaminer, the free-speech advocate, had been arguing that the used of the N-word in teaching American history was inappropriate, but that didn’t stop the Student Government Association from writing a letter stating that “if Smith is unsafe for one student, it is unsafe for all students.”

“It’s amazing to me that they can’t distinguish between racist speech and speech about racist speech, between racism and discussions of racism,” Kaminer wrote.

These students’ inability to comprehend words is because they are too indoctrinated with a victim mentality. We send our kids to school with the intent that they will be educated, that their minds will be expanded, and that they will learn about the world, but instead they are being shaped into these perpetually offended little wimps who need trauma therapy after hearing a different idea than their own.

What is even worse about these stories is that these kids are beginning to be such wimps that even comedians like Chris Rock won’t perform at or around colleges because they are TOO politically correct, and the students have zero sense of humor. He used the word ‘Conservative,’ but that isn’t what he meant at all. They would call him racist for making his jokes.

“Not in their political views — not like they’re voting Republican — but in their social views and their willingness not to offend anybody. Kids raised on a culture of ‘We’re not going to keep score in the game because we don’t want anybody to lose.’ Or just ignoring race to a fault. You can’t say ‘the black kid over there.’ No, it’s ‘the guy with the red shoes.’ You can’t even be offensive on your way to being inoffensive.”

Isn’t it ironic that even some of the most liberal people are starting to be annoyed by the political correctness that they demanded?

These students are the future of America, and we need to get a hold on them. The ones on college campuses might have no hope of being helped out of the liberal disorder, but small children still in elementary schools are still being shaped and molded. We need to stop being so worried about hurting their feelings, and worry about building children who will become selfless, humble, wise adults, instead of victims, because this sensitivity training is destroying our nation.