The issue with inflammatory speakers is that there are often violent altercations at their events. Student safety is paramount.
The argument
Controversial speakers attract two distinct crowds - their supporters and their detractors. The more controversial a speaker is, the more intense the beliefs on either side of that spectrum is. The relationship matters because it means the risk is not fixed but scales with the very quality that makes an invitation attractive in the first place: the speakers most likely to draw an audience are the speakers most likely to draw an audience that cares intensely. Crucially, it is likely that these groups might see each other as an existential threat - something so evil and awful that they might resort to violence. That framing is what removes the ordinary restraint on confrontation. Where an opponent is understood as merely mistaken, disagreement remains argumentative; where they are understood as a threat to one's existence, force can appear to the person contemplating it as defence rather than as aggression. Putting these two groups into the same venue, listening to the same inflammatory content would drastically increase the chance of a violent altercation that would harm not only those involved but innocent onlookers too. The venue is the operative factor. An event gathers both groups into one place, at one announced time, in a state of heightened feeling produced by the content itself — conditions that would be deliberately avoided in any other setting where a confrontation was foreseeable. This sort of violence has occurred before and is likely to occur again, and universities lack the resources to deal with it. A university is not a security organisation: its staff are not equipped to separate hostile crowds, and its buildings are designed for open access rather than for containment. It is therefore irresponsible for them to invite speakers that they know have a high likelihood of causing physical harm to students. The responsibility argued for is the ordinary one an institution owes the people in its care — where a foreseeable risk cannot be managed, declining to create it is the only measure actually available.
Context
The central duty of student unions and universtities should be the protection of their students from harm. Controversial events can often descend into violence, and this is happening more and more often.
Premises
Counter-arguments
Why do we grant students the right to be protected from controversial ideas? Citizens are not afforded the same protections in other public spaces. Why do university campuses need to be kept as spaces without offence and controversy? We don't remove offensive books from student libraries, or erect firewalls preventing offensive and inflammatory content reaching them online. Why should we stop controversial and inflammatory ideas reaching them through planned speaker events? There are other ways of preventing violence from happening that doesn’t stifle free speech. An increased police presence and harsher punishments for those starting violence are an alternative way to keep attendees physically safe.
Rejecting the premises
Rejection of P2 means both conclusions are invalidated. Universities do have ways of improving students’ safety.