Freedom of speech is under serious threat in the west, primarily in the US with policies and regulations infringing on this core value in democratic societies. Universities form policy in order to silence opinions they find contradictory to their values, causing students and teachers alike to risk academic punishment for statements which normally would be guarded within the First Amendment. The central argument behind these infringments are individuals subjective feelings towards, as one may put it, controversial opinions. The aim of this study is through an argument analysis, illustrate the values of freedom of speech in contrast to the demands of primarily minority groups and their advocates, using respectable philosophers and scientists such as John Stuart Mill to answer the question if infringements are applicable in democracies. The conclusions drawn in this essay based on all relevant arguments concludes the answer to be no; a democracy should not infringe on the freedom of speech to safeguard individuals from negative emotional reactions as a result of any legal speech.

Sweden is a multicultural society which means that there is a lot of pupils in Swedish schools with a background as refugees and with experiences from potentially traumatic and horrible events in their home countries. This study works with two different theories, trigger warning and pragmatism. Trigger warning explains why it could be necessary to hide or protect student from some specific topics or material and pragmatism says that it is educationally successful to use the pupils experiences in the classroom. Contemporary global conflicts, such as the ones that the pupils are coming from, could be a useful subject to teach about in social studies according to the Swedish curriculum. Given this circumstances, this study seeks to examine if it would be educationally and morally appropriate to use this potentially traumatic and sensitive experiences as a method of teaching. According to pragmatism, it would be. However, according to trigger warning, it could be relevant to protect the pupils from this kinds of subjects in school and in the classroom. Therefore, this study contains a tug of war between the two different theories and I interviewed pupils who has moved or has a family who has moved from warzones as refugees about this matter. A core in this study is to take the pupils perspective and examine what good, or bad, that comes out if a teacher in social studies wants to teach about the conflicts that the pupils has a connection to. The result shows that it in fact would be educationally successful even if these subjects are special and a teacher should always think about the circumstances and the methods they are using. In the theoretical tug of war pragmatism comes out as a winner, by trigger warnings could be relevant in some cases.