Sigal Ben-Porath Free Speech Analysis

I went to the talk “Free Speech on Campus: Protecting Inclusive Freedom in Polarizing Times”, by Sigal Ben-Porath, from University of Pennsylvania. Ben-Porath published a book with the same title in July 2017. In the past years, there were a couple instances where controversial speakers were chased away from college campuses. Ben-Porath listed a couple in her book: Robert B. Zoellick at Swarthmore College and Condoleezza Rice at Rutgers for the support of 2003 Iraq war, Milo Yiannopoulos at UC-Berkeley for hate crimes, Charles Murray at Middlebury.
However, Ben-Porath stresses that it is important to protect and to entertain the breadth of ideas. In most of the cases, a controversial speaker should not be uninvited or cancelled, for two reasons:

Ben-Porath talked about the event (I forgot the speaker’s name, but he is one of the person in support of white supremacy) at UPenn last spring, when only fewer than 10 people showed up to the event.
When questioned whether it is meaningful to allocate fundings to these controversial speakers, Ben-Porath responded that some of them might have their personal fundings (for instance the speaker at UPenn). The answer is not really satisfactory, as it did not respond to the question directly. But my guess is that it is hard to say without looking at specific instances.
Overall, I think Ben-Porath made some valid points, but I don’t think Ben-Porath thoroughly presented her ideas in the 1.5 hours. She briefly discusses the difference between “dignitary harm” and “intellectual challenges”, and “feeling comfortable”. She also showed us her student response to the people with signs of hate: with another sign, with humor. But what happens when the students feel deeply uncomfortable and insecure when controversial speakers are on campus? Is “absence” enough to make it a “safespace”? I think I might need to read more of her book to understand better about the boundaries between free speech and “dignitary