> The question is simply where the line gets drawn. And that's one which people who consider themselves ardent defenders of free speech frequently miss. I mean

> The question is simply where the line gets drawn. And that's one which people who consider themselves ardent defenders of free speech frequently miss. I mean, the linked article concludes with a quote insisting that people's speech should "stop short of demanding that the offender be punished or required to make restitution"... earlier in the piece the same author is quoted criticising "campaigns of vilification" and people being "pressed to recant" as the sort of speech which violates principles of liberalism. That's absolutely drawing a line and putting a whole lot of non-violent, First Amendment-protected speech the wrong side of it, in the style of Popper's paradox-of-tolerance but with the line for what liberalism shouldn't tolerate in a slightly different place. In general, I'm quite amenable to their argument that publicly vilifying certain people in certain ways for things they've said is harmful to the pursuit of science, but I can't see any qualitative difference between that and the argument that certain people ranting about certain minorities might be harmful to individuals (and by dint of its effects on those individuals, also to the pursuit of science). The latter argument has a better evidence base than the argument that non-violent picketing of Milo Yiannopoulos puts the benefits of science at risk, and I don't think the slippery slope between disinviting Milo from Berkeley and fatwas against people accused of blasphemy is any steeper than that between being intolerant of fatwas but also intolerant of bullying and racism.