I was around 17 years old when I first did any kind of news reporting. I was a university student.

I had just signed up to work at the college radio station, shout out to WMUA, and my first assignment was to cover a controversial campus speaker.

It was an anti-affirmative action activist. His name was Ward Connerley.

This was the late 90s, and Connerley was the chief architect of Prop 209,

which was this ballot initiative that abolished race-based affirmative action in California's public universities.

And that night on my campus, he was just completely shouted down.

I mean, not just by protesters outside, but by angry students in the hall.

But it wasn't the kind of story that would have been picked up beyond local papers.

That's not the case today.

UMass Amher students gathering in front of their student union to launch a protest against the campus police department.

What are we want?

Abolition!

Now, very routine student protests make national news.

We report on it here at CNN all the time.

CNN's L. Reid went to the University of Pittsburgh during a protest to ask students and educators what they think.

Do you think kids are less able to take or listen to opposing views now?

No, I don't think they're less able to listen to opposing views.

I just think they take less crap as they get older.

But between protesting controversial speakers, complaining about certain professors,

and never mind the debate over safe spaces, there are more and more partisan complaints

about the state of free speech on America's campuses. You know, I call it a safe enough space.

It's not so safe that you can't get offended, but it's safe enough that you're not going to get really hurt.

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