"Feisty campus dissent is back. And it’s winning," exulted msnbc.com's Aliyah Frumin in her May 15 story, teased on the main page with the header, "Commencement speakers drop like flies." [see screen capture below page break]

"In the last few weeks alone, campaigns at three schools forced commencement speakers to pass up significant speaker fees rather than face angry campuses," Frumin noted, adding that "[t]he last-minute cancellations have proved embarrassing to school leaders" and conceding that in turn they "have raised concerns about free speech and exposure to opposing views in settings designed to foster free thought." Although Frumin did not thread the needle on this point, it's pretty clear from her reporting that it's left-wing pressure groups forcing speakers to drop out on the basis of liberal complaints, while left-leaning speakers seem to face little or no pressure to back down from a speaking gig and/or have the full-throated backing of the campus administration in the event conservatives would protest [emphasis mine]: