http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/11/opinion/trigger-warnings-safe-spaces-and-free-speech-too.html 2016-09-12 14:12:33 Trigger Warnings, Safe Spaces and Free Speech, Too A little heads-up about uncomfortable and complex topics isn’t coddling. It helps students engage with one another. === I didn’t get the The implication was that students who support trigger warnings and safe spaces are narrow-minded, oversensitive and opposed to dialogue. The letter betrayed a fundamental misunderstanding of what the terms “trigger warnings” and “safe spaces” mean, and came across as an embarrassing attempt to deflect attention from serious issues on campus. A A safe space is an area on campus where students — especially but not limited to those who have endured trauma or feel marginalized — can feel comfortable talking about their experiences. This might be the Office of Multicultural Student Affairs or it could be Hillel House, but in essence, it’s a place for support and community. This spring, I was in a seminar that dealt with gender, sexuality and disability. Some of the course reading touched on disturbing subjects, including sexual violence and child abuse. The instructor told us that we could reach out to her if we had difficulty with the class materials, and that she’d do everything she could to make it easier for us to participate. She included a statement to this effect on the syllabus and repeated it briefly at the beginning of each class. Nobody sought to “retreat from ideas and perspectives at odds with their own,” as Dean Ellison put it in the letter, nor did these measures hinder discussion or disagreement, both of which were abundant. Of course, not every class calls out for trigger warnings — I’ve never heard of them for an economics course. Likewise, plenty of students will never need to visit a safe space. But for those who do, support systems can be a lifeline in the tumultuous environment of college, and are important precisely because they encourage a free exchange of ideas. A little heads-up can help students engage with uncomfortable and complex topics, and a little sensitivity to others, at the most basic level, isn’t coddling. Civic discourse in this country has become pretty ugly, so maybe it’s not surprising that students are trying to create ways to have compassionate, civil dialogue. The really strange thing about the Ellison letter, though, is that it positioned itself in opposition to resources the University of Chicago has already built: Instructors already choose whether to use trigger warnings in their classes, and there are many safe spaces on campus. Dean Ellison is even listed as a “safe space ally” on the website of one If, as a university spokesman The administration wants to appear as an intellectual force beating back destabilizing waves of political correctness that have rocked college campuses. But the focus of student protests Yet, the administration In this context, it’s hard to see the dean’s letter as anything other than a public relations maneuver. While students are being depicted as coddled and fragile, the administration is stacking bricks in its institutional wall to avoid engaging with their real concerns. It’s too bad, because there are certainly legitimate debates to be had over speech in academic settings. The Ellison letter, for example, included a denunciation of attempts by students to disrupt university-sponsored events featuring controversial speakers. But that has little to do with trigger warnings and safe spaces. Regardless of the posturing of academic administrations, in trigger warnings and safe spaces, students have carved out ways to help, accommodate and listen to those around them. Campus advocacy groups will not be deterred by a letter, as their goals have nothing to do with censorship and everything to do with holding universities accountable to the communities they are supposed to foster. This is the first in a series of dispatches by college students, professors and administrators on higher education and university life, at