If You Are Traumatized, The Answer Is To Work On Fixing Yourself, Not To Turn College Into A Trauma Center
There's been an increasing push to toward unfree speech and keeping "scary" ideas off campus -- the antithesis of what this country was founded on and what college is supposed to be about.
Judith Shulevitz writes in The New York Times about students in college hiding from these "scary ideas," describing one of them set up at Brown University, in case rape victims found a debate between Wendy McElroy and Jessica Valenti too upsetting:
The room was equipped with cookies, coloring books, bubbles, Play-Doh, calming music, pillows, blankets and a video of frolicking puppies, as well as students and staff members trained to deal with trauma. Emma Hall, a junior, rape survivor and "sexual assault peer educator" who helped set up the room and worked in it during the debate, estimates that a couple of dozen people used it. At one point she went to the lecture hall -- it was packed -- but after a while, she had to return to the safe space. "I was feeling bombarded by a lot of viewpoints that really go against my dearly and closely held beliefs," Ms. Hall said.Safe spaces are an expression of the conviction, increasingly prevalent among college students, that their schools should keep them from being "bombarded" by discomfiting or distressing viewpoints. Think of the safe space as the live-action version of the better-known trigger warning, a notice put on top of a syllabus or an assigned reading to alert students to the presence of potentially disturbing material.
Some people trace safe spaces back to the feminist consciousness-raising groups of the 1960s and 1970s, others to the gay and lesbian movement of the early 1990s. In most cases, safe spaces are innocuous gatherings of like-minded people who agree to refrain from ridicule, criticism or what they term microaggressions -- subtle displays of racial or sexual bias -- so that everyone can relax enough to explore the nuances of, say, a fluid gender identity. As long as all parties consent to such restrictions, these little islands of self-restraint seem like a perfectly fine idea.
I disagree on that. It turns us into a society of coddled babies. Or maybe keeps up the good work of helicopter parents. Shulevitz continues:
But the notion that ticklish conversations must be scrubbed clean of controversy has a way of leaking out and spreading. Once you designate some spaces as safe, you imply that the rest are unsafe. It follows that they should be made safer.
And this is the feeling and push on campus -- for an environment free of debate or discomfort...and pruned of too many people lacking in approved colors:
A year and a half ago, a Hampshire College student group disinvited an Afrofunk band that had been attacked on social media for having too many white musicians; the vitriolic discussion had made students feel "unsafe."
Shulevitz winds up with a Muslim student complaining during Charlie Hebdo journalist Zineb El Rhazoui's talk at the University of Chicago about the newspaper's disrespect for Muslims. The student expressed her dislike for the phrase "I am Charlie."
Ms. El Rhazoui replied, somewhat irritably, "Being Charlie Hebdo means to die because of a drawing," and not everyone has the guts to do that (although she didn't use the word guts). She lives under constant threat, Ms. El Rhazoui said. The student answered that she felt threatened, too.A few days later, a guest editorialist in the student newspaper took Ms. El Rhazoui to task. She had failed to ensure "that others felt safe enough to express dissenting opinions." Ms. El Rhazoui's "relative position of power," the writer continued, had granted her a "free pass to make condescending attacks on a member of the university." In a letter to the editor, the president and the vice president of the University of Chicago French Club, which had sponsored the talk, shot back, saying, "El Rhazoui is an immigrant, a woman, Arab, a human-rights activist who has known exile, and a journalist living in very real fear of death. She was invited to speak precisely because her right to do so is, quite literally, under threat."
You'd be hard-pressed to avoid the conclusion that the student and her defender had burrowed so deep inside their cocoons, were so overcome by their own fragility, that they couldn't see that it was Ms. El Rhazoui who was in need of a safer space.
There are institutions to help people who are so traumatized that they cannot hear a word, term, or idea, and they are not institutions of higher learning.
If you are too traumatized to function without deeming some thinking off limits, the answer is to work on fixing yourself, not to try to turn your college into a trauma center.
via KateC
Well, what did you think college was for, Amy? A free exchange of ideas, some controversial? What are you? Insane?
Patrick at March 22, 2015 6:02 AM
Quoting a @Popehat tweet:
Amy Alkon at March 22, 2015 6:05 AM
Hoping this is just the college humoring a small number of students.
Easier to get a Federal Grant to build a "safe" space than to put up with the flak if Admin said "Grow a pair".
Bob in Texas at March 22, 2015 7:05 AM
Alternately, at least in the latter case, someone was playing a "reflection attack", i.e. tearing apart the original argument by emulating the original poster's arguments and worldview, in order to show the ridiculousness of them.
Sort of like the idea of taking a copy of "Mein Kampf", doing a global search and replace of a few words, and putting in out in the SJW blogosphere.
You'd likely have people extolling the work at "incisive" and "ground-breaking".
And THEN, you do the reveal. . . (evil grin)
Keith Glass at March 22, 2015 7:16 AM
Brown was always a school for the dumb rich, and I'm glad to see things haven't changed. Coloring books? How much is tuition? If you're that messed up, maybe intensive therapy would be a better idea than college.
kateC at March 22, 2015 7:33 AM
Ms Alkon: "There are institutions to help people who are so traumatized that they cannot hear a word, term, or idea, and they are not institutions of higher learning."
Yes. I work in one. It's called a "psychiatric hospital". Maybe we should start calling it a university.
Ken R at March 22, 2015 8:43 AM
I fail to see the point of needing this 'safe space' bullshit concurrent with this debate.
Was the debate mandatory for some classes?
If so, wouldn't there be other requirements that might be worse than a lecture?
And WTF is this feeling bombarded by a lot of viewpoints that really go against my dearly and closely held beliefs?? Yo, snowflake? That kind of thing happens to pretty much everyone, every day of their lives.
Want your 'early held beliefs bombarded? You are certainly at an accommodating location on the interwebs, yes?
DrCos at March 22, 2015 9:15 AM
"As long as all parties consent to such restrictions, these little islands of self-restraint seem like a perfectly fine idea."
No, it is NOT a fine idea.
These safe spaces are using tax dollars (through student loans) and through other students' tuition.
If someone wants a "safe space" let them do so off campus and with their own money.
They (and their parents who allow them to go to such idiotic schools) are not preparing themselves for the real world.
But, let them do so without using any of someone else's money!
charles at March 22, 2015 9:15 AM
...and the single quote is nowhere near the "d" key...
DrCos at March 22, 2015 9:16 AM
The patients on my psych unit are teenagers, mostly girls, most of whom truly have been traumatized: used, abused and mistreated throughout their childhoods in unspeakable ways. They don't demand that other people accommodate their illnesses. Mostly they just long to be able to live and function in the world like "normal" people. One thing they're not is delicate. "Scrappy" would be a fitting adjective. Or "pain in the ass" - but in a way that makes it hard not to like them. It makes me think the feeble, quivering "survivors" at the universities are just pity-seeking phonies.
Ken R at March 22, 2015 9:33 AM
"If you are too traumatized to function without deeming some thinking off limits, the answer is to work on fixing yourself, not to try to turn your college into a trauma center."
Once again Amy, you have boiled a ridiculous concept into one perfect sentence that captures the idiocy of these people. Thank you.
Jay at March 22, 2015 10:12 AM
I wonder how much of this concern over being offended or traumatized on campus is due to the higher proportion of women now on college campuses.
Women now make up a larger number of students on campus than men.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/415747/check-your-privilege-theory-george-will
Conan the Grammarian at March 22, 2015 11:44 AM
"cookies, coloring books, bubbles, Play-Doh, calming music, pillows, blankets and a video of frolicking puppies"
Amazing, that their idea of a safe place at age 18 is kindergarten. It is the definition of being infantilized, unable to live in and enjoy a more challenging environment. What was done to these people?
Sorry for my being unrealistic. Cookies are no longer allowed in kindergarten.
Andrew_M_Garland at March 22, 2015 9:05 PM
I think Conan might be onto something with the more women on campus. I can remember when I was in college (mid 90s) they had safe places for some of the more controversial speakers. It was just a couple of counselors and cool water in a close by room where you wouldn't hear the lecture - I was security for many of these so I know. I only remember escorting any body to the safe room (both women) during a vary gratuitous rape store (I heard the speaker talked to one of the counselors after the lecture she got so worked up). There was also a number of "safe" groups. My point, the school had a lot of women for the time - well more than half.
I can remember hearing of safe places in school in the late 80s - primarily for GLBT but also for the black community -- there were around 5 black people in my school - an extreme minority.
The Former Banker at March 22, 2015 10:14 PM
"I was feeling bombarded by a lot of viewpoints that really go against my dearly and closely held beliefs,"
Yeah, that NEVER happens out in the world...
bkmale at March 23, 2015 8:01 AM
"Coloring books?"
I was going to sarcastically suggest Rainbow Brite and Teletubbies... but they'd probably think that is a good idea.
"As long as all parties consent to such restrictions, these little islands of self-restraint seem like a perfectly fine idea."
Of course the problem is that it isn't self-restraint at all; it's externally imposed restraint. The fact that some people consent to be so restrained does not make it any less external. Self-restraint you can practice anywhere; you don't need a "safe space" to do it.
""El Rhazoui is an immigrant, a woman, Arab, "
The problem with this argument is that it isn't a defense of free speech at all. Rather, it's a privilege claim based on being higher up the aggrevied-groups totem pole. Consider if a white male went on stage in El Rhazoui's place and spoke the exact same words. Now, I understand why the person from the French Club chose this method of defending El Rhazoui -- that's how it's done on campus these days. Nonetheless, it shows that not only is free speech not defended on campus, but the very idea of doing so doesn't cross anyone's mind, nor do they have any concept of how to do it.
Cousin Dave at March 23, 2015 8:34 AM
If you're offended by what a speaker in an auditorium on campus has to say, leave. Go home. Go to a coffee shop. Go to a park and sit on a bench. Go deface the posters advertising the event. Write a letter to the school newspaper.
Seriously, if you're so emotionally fragile that you need a place in the immediate vicinity in which to sit surrounded by coloring books and stuffed animals, college is not for you.
When I was in college, the quad and common areas on a daily basis were full of political, religious, and psychotic ranters. One couldn't go 10 feet in any direction without being accosted by Hare Krishnas, anti-gun nuts, gun nuts, militant vegans, end-of-the-world nuts, Jed and Disco Cindy, et al.
What did we do? We ate the free lunch the Krishnas were offering, listened and laughed as Jed preached about Cindy's salvation, and round-filed the flyers with the disgusting pictures of slaughter houses that the anti-meat folks handed to everyone they could get to. And then we went to class. We didn't go to the safe room and color.
And we did it walking uphill both ways. Now get off my lawn!
Conan the Grammarian at March 23, 2015 8:50 AM
Incidentally, anyone who has 22 minutes to spare can see Wendy McElroy's Brown University presentation -- the one that students needed to be protected from -- on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdlVcjYYCbs
Unfortunately, Jessica Valenti has denied permission for her side of the debate to be posted online.
Brad R at March 26, 2015 11:18 AM
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