The author is the president of the Jewish Student Union (JSU) at Brookline High School. The views presented in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the JSU as a whole.

In October, the Jewish Student Union (JSU) was contacted by StandWithUs, a nonprofit Israel advocacy and education organization. They offered for Columbia Business School Professor Shai Davidai to give a talk to students and faculty at the high school. During Columbia’s campus protests in the spring, Professor Davidai was active in defending Israeli and Jewish students as well as speaking against the Columbia administration’s handling of the tent encampments. As a speaker, Professor Davidai planned to talk about the challenges Jewish high schoolers may face amid rising anti-semitism, especially on college campuses, and how to balance pride in Jewish heritage with a commitment to peaceful, open dialogue.

JSU was honored by the opportunity and with the permission of its advisor, planned for Professor Davidai to speak on Nov. 6 in Room 383 during teacher collaboration time. The event was publicized by the JSU and was featured in the Counseling Department’s Weekly Update email on Nov. 4.

Early in the morning on Tuesday, Nov. 5, JSU received an email from StandWithUs stating that the booking was canceled. When JSU leaders inquired about the cancellation, our faculty advisor explained in an email that while she believed strongly in civil discourse and freedom of speech, she was concerned the speaker might make some students uncomfortable and that the event could attract demonstrators. Additionally, the advisor worried it would become a reason to criticize the high school, and didn’t want to be held responsible for potential controversies that could arise.

It is heartbreaking that a faculty member felt nervous about a scholar speaking to students in a high school classroom about navigating antisemitism on school campuses. When a faculty member is scared for their name to be associated with a speaker just because of the speaker’s opinions (which are neither hateful nor violent), it signals that the high school has work to do in creating a climate that promotes free speech. The teacher who canceled the event also cited that the high school might be criticized for not hosting a speaker with opposing viewpoints. Professor Davidai would be speaking against anti-semitism; if the JSU were to host a speaker with an opposing viewpoint, that speaker would be calling for anti-semitism. If a different club were to host a speaker who was against racism, would they also need to welcome a speaker who supported racism?

Yet, what might be the most concerning rationale for Professor Davidai’s cancellation was not that the speech would be hateful or create the potential for a physical threat. Every school must restrict threatening speech or fighting words, which are not protected by the First Amendment. Rather, it was because the speaker may have caused some people to feel uncomfortable and anxious.

This rationale sacrifices free speech at the altar of student comfort. However, the high school is not alone in making this sacrifice, which is called safetyism. In the book “The Coddling of the American Mind” by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt, safetyism is the belief that safety — particularly self-perceived emotional safety — is the ultimate goal of an institution. Schools that have embraced safetyism have canceled speakers because such speakers might cause some people in the community to feel uncomfortable and have their feelings hurt. The authors of “The Coddling of the American Mind” argue that when free speech is suppressed in favor of the emotional comfort of some students, it creates a climate where a student who disagrees with an idea is encouraged to erase the idea from their school, to make it cease to exist. Unfortunately, this only hurts students. Once they graduate and step into society, they will face many different opinions and won’t be prepared to deal with them. After all, you cannot just censor everything that makes you uncomfortable.

Furthermore, when opinions are censored in favor of safety, truth doesn’t become the main objective, comfort does. A school turns from being focused on presenting and discussing ideas to prioritizing the comfort of students above all else. In short, we go from a “truth and ideas” school to a “comfort and coddling” school.

Speakers at the high school should not be censored because they may make some students (or their parents) feel uncomfortable or anxious. We must take students out of their comfort zones at times to help them learn, analyze, argue and grow as thinkers who are open to civil dialogue. The high school — like every other educational institution — has a responsibility to teach, not coddle.