In follow ups, I've been trying to be clear that I'm not a fan of the students heckling/shouting down the speaker. My original comment specifically noted that I wasn't going to focus on that - my main issue was with the framing of the narrative. If we're going to use court as an example, yeah we don't scream at the DA (or prosecutor). But if the DA is spouting nonsense, or bringing up irrelevant arguments, or even going down a line of questioning that's trolling, I'd be a bad attorney if I didn't register "objection, relevance." Just because the court has rules and procedures and we (within reason) listen to what people have to say, doesn't mean judges won't routinely cut people off if they're not focused on the case at hand. I've seen judges cut people off after they're meandering/not addressing the questions with just a (paraphrased) "I want you to answer the question. Nothing more and if you have anything else to say I don't want to hear it right now." To fuse metaphor and point, yeah, let people speak. But when they're trolling, or bringing up bullshit arguments, I don't feel the need to afford them automatic respect by dint of their status as Speaker. I'm well within my rights (and I'd argue, many people should exercise this right) to just reply "Objection, relevance." Again, when we lump in engaging, controversial, entertaining" speakers in the same group as "trolls and demagogues" without distinguishing, we privilege trolling and demagoguery over an actual exchange of ideas.