It is now the best of times and the worst of times on college campuses, and in the Windy City in particular. Less than 10 miles separate the University of Chicago and DePaul University geographically, but a gulf has formed between them. Where the University of Chicago has been resolute in its defense of freedom of expression, DePaul University has flailed: It desperately needs to follow the moral leadership coming from Hyde Park.

Recently, the University of Chicago’s undergraduate Dean of Students, Jay Ellison, mailed a welcome letter to its incoming class of 2020 in which he reiterated the university’s commitment to academic freedom and intellectual diversity, regardless of disagreement or discomfort. He made clear that trigger warnings, speaker disinvitations, and so-called safe spaces have no place at the U. of C. In this, the university upheld the legacy of its onetime president, Robert Maynard Hutchins, that “free inquiry is indispensable to the good life, that universities exist for the sake of such inquiry, [and] that without it they cease to be universities.”