Well, that's exactly what they're doing, isn't it?

Suppressing free speech, that is...

Gun supporters say colleges trample protest rights
PITTSBURGH — Colleges nationwide have unconstitutionally barred students from handing out literature, protesting and gathering in support of the right to carry weapons on campus, students and an advocacy group say.
Christine Brashier, a freshman at the Community College of Allegheny County near Pittsburgh, said a dean recently told her she had to stop distributing fliers for the group Students for Concealed Carry on Campus, which has chapters at many colleges, and destroy the pamphlets she had designed.

Yep, that's about the most clear-cut violation of the First Amendment right to free speech that I've ever seen, as are the other examples mentioned here. I'm all for working with the colleges to get these protests and discussions allowed, but failing that, well, I'd be letting slip the dogs of war if I were the advocacy group mentioned here. Not letting students carry a gun is one thing, but not even letting them discuss it or foster debate on campus is another thing entirely. I thought institutions of higher learning, collectively speaking, were supposed to be the one place free discussion and debate about everything would be allowed, even encouraged. It would seem that some topics of discussion are more worthy of protection than others. Good grief, we're not talking about sedition or actively encouraging violent overthrow of the government here! I wonder what people would say if the colleges were telling people to tear up their pamphlets on homosexuality, sex education or birth control. You know exactly what they'd say — they'd call it out for the violation of the First Amendment right to free speech that it so obviously would be. The stifling of the discussion on campus concealed carry shouldn't be seen any differently. One wonders what the colleges are so afraid of — perhaps that if the discussion is allowed, people will come to see that, in the words of Mike Vanderboegh, "'gun-free-zone' is a lie every bit as much as 'Arbeit Macht Frei' and every bit as deadly — and then demand their God-given, natural right of self-defense with the best tools available be denied no longer?