Across American campuses, the ancient tension between open expression and social consequence is playing out with renewed intensity, as conservative and progressive students alike find that political identity now carries measurable risk. From Colorado to New York, universities are being asked to arbitrate disputes that no institution is fully equipped to resolve — not because the rules are unclear, but because the underlying values are genuinely contested. These incidents, scattered and varied as they are, reflect a deeper uncertainty about what it means to speak freely in a community where eve