The University of Chicago and the rhetoric behind trigger warnings and safe spaces
I first started seeing comments about it on Wednesday evening, but it wasn’t until Thursday morning that it was rocketed into the realm of national news.
In a welcome letter to the incoming freshmen, John Ellison, the University of Chicago’s Dean of students wrote that they should not expect “trigger warnings” or “safe spaces” on campus because they are antithetical to the institution’s commitment to free exchange of ideas.
“Our commitment to academic freedom means that we do not support so-called ‘trigger warnings,’ we do not cancel invited speakers because their topics might prove controversial, and we do not condone the creation of intellectual ‘safe spaces’ where individuals can retreat from ideas and perspectives at odds with their own.”
I’ve seen quite a bit of snickering about how UC, an institution that, for better or worse, went though a great deal of trouble to turn the Hyde Park into a pocket neighborhood walled off from the surrounding communities - something that has only recently started to to change - should be the last university to complain about creating pockets of safety. But that’s not why I’m writing this.
First of all, it is important to understand that this didn’t come out of nowhere. The Chicago Maroon, the university’s only remaining student newspaper, touched on some of the background in its own coverage of the incident. But if you wanted to get a more in-depth look, I would suggest reading this article from the Spring 2015 issue of the Grey City (the UC’s quarterly magazine run by the same people as the Maroon).
The short(ish) version is that, over the past few years, UC has seen a number of controversies over the speakers (on both sides of the political spectrum) who were invited to speak at the university, and how the student protesters responded to them. There were also controversy over racist rhetoric on social media and the ways UC invests its funds (and, again - criticisms came from both sides of the political spectrum).
In response, the UC Committee on Freedom of Expression released a report that attempted to create a unified position on freedom of speech and freedom of expression on campus.
he report goes on to state that although the University values civility, concerns over civility and respect cannot be used as an excuse to censor offensive ideas. Exceptions are made for false defamation, certain breaches of privacy and genuine harassment among other categories. However, the report, whose existence is fairly unique to the U of C, constitutes very broad protections for free speech. It may have been intended to address national issues regarding speaker events, but the text of the document is worded in a way that could have implications for a wide variety of campus speech.
The report states: “Because the University is committed to free and open inquiry in all matters, it guarantees all members of the University community the broadest possible latitude to speak, write, listen, challenge, and learn.”
The scope, clearly, is a little broader than just its application to visiting lecturers.
The tricky part is just what falls under the aforementioned exceptions. As the Grey City article explains in great deal, there is some ambiguities about what is or isn’t protected. Organizations such as Foundation for Individual Rights in Education criticized it for imposing de facto restrictions on free speech, which student activists worried that it didn’t give enough recourse to students who genuinely felt threatened due to racial/ethnic/sexual slurs.
The article also touches on how student activists urged university not to invite certain speakers - and, in every case, the university pushed back, saying that academic freedom and free exchange of ideas took precedence. In one particularly controversial incident, back in 2014, the UC Institute of Politics organized a panel that included sex columnist and activist Dan Savage. During the course of the panel used the word “tranny” (while explaining why he used this word for much of his career, but stopped three years earlier), there was an outcry about him using that word at all, with students arguing that he shouldn’t be using it at all, in any context. Queers United In Power student organizations demanded that the Institute of Politics apologize for letting Savage use the word - which they haven’t.
Having written all that, I do feel that Ellison’s letter may have, to use the Russian idiom, bent a stick too far in the other direction.
For starters, I do think trigger warnings have a purpose. Say you have a class dealing with sexual assault, or gory realities of warfare, or physical/mental abuse. Chances are that there may be students who experiences some of those. Not everybody processes trauma the same way, and some may be able to handle it better then others, but nobody walks away completely unscathed. Giving the classroom a heads up that, hey, there are some difficult topics that are going to be discussed, seems like a decent thing to do.
I am less sure about things like racial/ethnic slurs. There is no doubt that (to use an example relevant to my ancestry) calling a student a kike. It’s insulting, demeaning and disrespectful. It shouldn’t be tolerated in a college setting not just because it’s all of those things, but because proper academic discourse requires a certain level of baseline mutual respect, and using such terms clearly isn’t that.
But what about that same slur appearing in, say, historical documents presented during a history course? Or in a course dealing with contemporary racism? On one hand, an argument could be made that some kind of warning wouldn’t hurt. On the other hand, any study of history must deal with some unpleasant realities therein, and any sociology class must, by its nature, deal with less-then-pleasant realities of today. I would argue that there Is a certain implicit expectation that difficult materials will be addressed.
And what about terms that aren’t necessarily racist in all contexts? “Faggot”is an insult when used by someone who feels that being gay is shameful, or wrong, but it isn’t necessarily as harsh when used between gay men. Or what about, say, images on drag performers. I’ve seen people in my Twitter feed arguing that it’s basically an equivalent of blackface for trans people, and I’ve seen others insist that it’s a form of self-expression that doesn’t conform to gender norms, and that it’s as legitimate and other forms of gender non-conformity.
I guess ultimately, I believe that while slurs have power to hurt, and some may be more hurt by them then others, I’m not quite sure they are as bad the experiences that result in psychological triggers.
(I don’t want to get too deep into this, for reasons that I’m not going to mention in a public forum, but lets just say that I had friends and family members who experienced rape, starvation, torture and abuse. It’s a big reason why I don’t take the concept of triggers lightly. But… as I’ve often said on this blog, words have meanings. And heavily loaded words should be used carefully and judiciously).
As for safe spaces.. If one defines the term as the space where one is comfortable with being true to one’s own identity, and expressing one’s beliefs without fear of an aggressive response, most college campuses already have something like this - fraternal organizations, clubs, activist groups. I don’t think there is anything necessarily wrong where, say, left-leaning black students want to hang out with similar left-leaning black students, and talk about concerns that are likely to get negative response from their white peers. There is something to be said from an environment where you don’t have to worry about justifying yourself, where you don’t necessarily feel on the defensive. If nothing else, it has therapeutic value.
It’s where the motion bleeds into public spaces that things get murky. I was originally going to write that they have no place in public spaces, but upon further reflection, I thought that there is nothing wrong with, say, groups of like-minded people sitting together at lunch, or studying at a corner of the library. I still take issue with, say, students blocking off public space on the campus groups during last year’s University of Missouri protests. And, as far as applying that motion to the classroom…
What makes private safe spaces work is that each group can decide for themselves what they are comfortable with and what they are not. And whatever they decide doesn’t affect anyone but their fellow like-minded people. But in a classroom, where students are bound by their interest in the course subject and little else, it’s much harder to achieve consensus, and conflicts are more likely to emerge. And, ideally, in a classroom setting, students should be able to voice their opinions freely. It doesn’t mean that they won’t get any pushback, but hopefully, those differences of opinion would be discussed with a certain measure of baseline civility.
And I do think that, at least in the context of classroom discussion, a certain level of baseline civility is required. A classroom is, ideally, a venue for exchange of ideas, a place where students learn and challenge what they learn. This means that everyone involved have to at least assume that, as human beings, everyone involved is worthy of respect. And that even if they have opinions you disagree with, that their heart is in the right place. If you enter a classroom assuming that people who disagree with you are not only wrong, but evil, then all everyone is doing is shouting talking points at each other.
A civil discussion is one of those things that works much better in theory then in practice. When challenged, it’s human nature to lash out, to take personal offense. And sometimes, emotions get the better of us. But it’s still an idea worth striving for.
In an honest exchange of ideas, people are going to hear viewpoints that make them uncomfortable. They are going to take things personally. And people are going to say things about poor people, or black people, or immigrants, that are going to offend others. I’m not saying that those who are offended should just sit back and take it. But they shouldn’t expect not to face anything that hurts them, either.
And then, of course, there is a question of what a safe space in a classroom would even look like. Like I said earlier, in any given classroom, you are bound to get diverse opinions. And the whole notion of “safe space” is hardly exclusive to left-leaning activists. What about Evangelicals who insist that any criticism of their brand of conservative Protestantism is persecution? What about Gamergate supporters who insist that video games shouldn’t touch on social issues whatsoever. What about Republicans who say that talking about police brutality just riles black people up and puts cops’ lives in danger?
In the Grey City article, one of the student activists, a trans student who calls oneself Hex, said that the term “safe spaces” don’t imply that there aren’t going to be opposing views.
“A lot of misconceptions of safe spaces is that you’re not going to hear opinions that you disagree with, and that’s not a safe space, that’s a comfortable space which is different. Safe space is when you hear something you disagree with, [it’s] not going to be said in such a way that personally attacks you.”
But that’s easier said then done. I feel personally attacked when people complain about poor people on welfare leeching off the government. When people criticize Soviet military conduct during World War II, I tend to take it personally. I even get skittish about criticism of Israel (without wading too deeply into that particular can of worms, I think that a lot of people on the left oversimplify a complex situation - and some of the statements I heard among those further left skirt dangerously close to anti-Semitism).
In any given classroom, you never know what someone might take personally, and what might make them feel attacked. We are too diverse, too uniquely shaped by our circumstances, to try to account for everything. And even if it was possible - I prefer to tell people why I think they are wrong, and give them a chance to defend themselves. It won’t necessarily change anyone’s minds, but debating political viewpoints forces each party to defend theirs. And that can lead to a deeper introspection why they believe what they believe.
There are reasonable restrictions - like the idea that using slurs against fellow students is unacceptable - but past that… There is always going to be risk that someone is going to feel attacked, or hurt, or offended. And I don’t think any effort to establish safe spaces (as Hex defined it) in a classroom is feasible, or sustainable.
In his letter, Ellison specifically spoke out against “intellectual safe spaces,” as opposed to just “safe spaces.” I think that was very much deliberate.
Having said all that - as I said earlier, I feel like this is overbending a stick.
In a Tribune article that was published since I started writing this post back on Thursday, UC clarified that they didn’t intend to ban trigger warnings and safe spaces completely. Professors were still free to implement them in their own classroom. The university justw wouldn’t encourage them.
But I think that still sends the wrong message. It frames the issue as the university isn’t interested in having any discussion at all on the matter. Which I don’t think is terribly productive, either - for all of the reasons I outlined above.
How should the university have handled it? I’m honestly not sure. But there will be plenty of opportunities to address it again, because I highly doubt this is the last we’ll hear on this topic.