These past two weeks have been tumultuous, historic and violent. Racially insensitive emails, multiple university protests, terrorist attacks in Paris and Beirut, calls to stall aid to Syrian refugees and politicians’ demands to shut down mosques quickly found their ways onto headlines around the nation.

In the midst of the recent chaos, we see that the rights to free speech, press, exercise of religion, peaceful assembly and to petition the government have become centers of social conflict. Though these rights are inalienable in the context of the Constitution, the world beyond law complicates the freedoms we take for granted every day.

These issues have been embodied by recent events unfolding on college campuses. Starting in September, the #ConcernedStudent1950 student movement shook the University of Missouri. Protests polarized other prominent universities, such as Yale, around the same time. Following a faculty member’s email about culturally appropriative Halloween costumes and an undergraduate’s report of racial discrimination at a fraternity party, Yale students pointed out the administration’s hesitation to sufficiently address racism on campus.

While the law protects the the use of racial slurs and hate symbols, such as a swastika made of human feces found at a University of Missouri residence hall, society holds these forms of free speech in contempt.

In public interactions with others, we invoke our rights to free speech, often without considering the effects of our words on others. The responses to the hate speech used in each protest indicate a deliberate distinction between our guaranteed freedom of speech and socially responsible use of speech.

On a similar note, the protests featured ample media coverage, with university and professional reporters buzzing around each scene. Students and faculty openly rejected the media, whose role as a watchdog over the government and as an instrument of detecting social biases has come under fire after its traditionally biased portrayals of minorities.

Back at the University of Missouri, freelance photographer Tim Tai attempted to photograph protesters in the campus Quad. Despite various signs prohibiting media in that area of campus, Tai did not leave, citing his freedom of press under the First Amendment. At the same time, students and faculty physically and verbally intimidated him.

Conflicts over the freedom of religion and its exercise intensified following the attacks in Paris and the suicide bombings in Beirut. After the Islamic State claimed responsibility for these incidents, many western nations shut their once-welcoming borders to Syrian refugees fleeing from the Syrian Civil War.

Even American political figures, such as presidential candidate Donald Trump, demanded that the U.S. “strongly consider” shutting down certain mosques. Thirty-one governors have stated that they will not support incoming Syrian refugees, pointing to suspect criminal backgrounds and security against potential terrorist threats as their main reasons for the decision.

The result: freedom of religion may soon fall under the “clear and present danger” language invoked by the Supreme Court during the First Red Scare.

Though Harker currently welcomes students of all backgrounds, it is important to acknowledge that undercurrents of racial and cultural intolerance exist everywhere. If the protests have proven anything, it’s that bigotry, subconscious or intentional, survives even in supposedly tolerant epicenters of higher education.

This piece was originally published in the pages of the Winged Post on November 20, 2015.