http://www.vox.com/2015/6/3/8706323/college-professor-afraid
I’m seeing a pattern here… comedians refusing to do stand-up acts at colleges, “safe spaces”, and now this.
Are kids become too soft? What’s driving all of this?
I think the article tries to explain what’s driving this – and its impact in the classroom. To blame the phenomenon on kids who may or may not have become too soft is simplistic. The issue is far broader, and encompasses how all of us – from individuals and scholars to politicians – talk about political and social issues. Professors are prime targets because their job is to talk about these political and social issues.
There is a trend toward people in general getting more of their news from partisan news sources*, reinforcing their political viewpoints and not exposing them to other points of view.
*For example, CNN has dropped to third place among television news networks, behind the more partisan Fox (right-leaning) and MSNBC (left-leaning).
Maybe instead of blaming the students for not getting tenure, the author should blame the system that gives so much power to their silly complaints.
What on earth are you talking about? What power? What silly complaints? Did you read this article at all?
I remember just rolling my eyes about my profs who had extremist or one-sided views. To me, that type of prof is not a good teacher.
I think what drives more active complaints about profs is the price of college. When you are paying $55k per year, you expect to be and want to be exposed to all the arguments for or against an issue, not just one.
I know this doesn’t address the personal hurt feelings aspect exhibited by today’s college students. That is probably driven by how they were raised by doting, helicopter parents.
I read this piece with some amusement and yes, schadenfreude. Just more evidence, if evidence were needed, that revolutions eat their own.
As someone who has generally been more politically conservative than the vast majority of my academic colleagues, from graduate school on, I am very aware of the unspoken limits on the politically acceptable discourse in the classroom and the faculty lounge. I have never felt it to be my responsibility to proselytize my students on any particular political point of view, and I have taken care to keep my politics out of the classroom (knowing what it feels like when a professor assumes we’re all good progressives here and makes snarky comments about dumb rednecks, red-staters, religious people, etc.). Identity politics has done a lot of damage to academe, and the same people who are complaining now had plenty to do with establishing the victimology tendency they now decry.
That said, I do have some sympathy with the author’s position. Recently I was part of a discussion about trauma triggers in the curriculum and whether we are responsible for warning students about potentially disturbing material. My position is that it’s all in the syllabus; if you think you may study something that may disturb you, drop the class. The context was veterans with PTSD or rape victims; however, these students would have to skip any basic Western classics class (i.e. no study of the Iliad or similar would be possible for such students, which is unfortunate).
My daughter recently told me about her experience this past semester that matched the concerns in the article. She was studying abroad and had a mix of students from different colleges in a psych class. She said that a group of students was offended by what she termed “harmless comments” made by a professor. She said “what in the world are they going to do in the real world if they think harmless comments like those are bad?”. The students tried to get the visiting professor fired while DD organized a counter effort against the complainers.
My worry is that this kind of oversensitivity will begin to infiltrate the workplace.
I don’t think public u profs can be fired for what they say, unless it rises to the level of harassment
^ not if they’re adjuncts.
I grew up with a mother and father that were diametrically opposed in their political leanings - lots of loud, dynamic family dinners.and dinner was at 6, all heck would break lose if we were a minute late…I grew up encouraging discourse, discussion and arguments at our dinner table and dinner time was set before everyone went out the door in the morning, no excuses. I blame all of this on the fact that families don’t eat together anymore 
or kids are in some sort of weird cocoon or pupa and they don’t get exposed to the world until they escape the chrysalis stage as fully formed college students.
The headline implies liberal students are super-sensitive, yet the only formal complaint the teacher received was some years ago for being too communistical. Everyone is easy to outrage these days, not just liberals.
I think the trigger warning stuff tends to fall on the more liberal side, and I agree that it’s a concern - I think it’s unhealthy to try to avoid mention of anything that might make a person feel uncomfortable or traumatic, even - that’s something that should be dealt with in therapy, not by silencing others.
It use to be “sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me”. Today it seems to be sticks and stones may break my bones but my words sure can hurt me. We have become a very easily offended people. We live in a world where are words can be spread all over the world in seconds and everything we say can be analyzed and parsed without consideration for context.
There are always two sides. The liberal prof dismissed a conservative view with no discussion except " experts don’t agree"… He shut down discussion. And received a complaint. Six years ago. Seemed fair to me–maybe he needs to learn how to handle a healthy debate in the classroom. Obviously not happening now. By him or students.
My son had a few profs who were so busy espousing their political views they forgot to teach anything.
One student I met (we were discussing future classes) said “Give me an old white male with no agenda. At least I learn something. I’m tired of Ms. X who just rants on inequality and social injustice–too bad the class isn’t on that topic.” In this case it’s the students afraid of their profs.
I agree with the point that healthy debate in the classroom is lost. People espouse their views based on feelings rather than facts. Our dinner table always had lively discussion–we welcomed all arguments for and against all sorts of hot topics. We had a lot of neighborhood kids around our table on a regular basis. But one rule is that you had to have some BASIS for your opinion (not just your feelings). We played devil’s advocate quite a bit. It was always clear that debate (and it looks like arguing from the outside at times) was never personal but mind-opening. Nobody got shut down because they had an “unpopular” opinion (how can you learn anything if you only always hear one side? Or learn how others think?) I know the kids learned to listen to opposing viewpoints and expand their view perhaps but also to be able to clearly define their own views to others in a calm manner. When people fear expressing opinion based on the reaction of others it shuts down real conversation and the possibility of change.
As to hurting “sensibilities” of students–we have a Minneapolis teacher who took her students on a field trip to the “Smitten Kitten” (adult novelty store). She thought this was a great idea. Uh, no…
How about the prof a few years back that thought a porn film was appropriate as a cultural experience?
I’m sure the teacher/prof thought parents were backwards/ students too sensitive.
This was a good response, I thought:
http://www.vox.com/2015/6/5/8736591/liberal-professor-identity
This trend has been going on for a while, folks. Remember when Reagan Administration cabinet officials were shouted down during Commencement ceremonies? I had objections to more than one of President Reagan’s political/philosophical objectives, but it made no sense to me that supposedly educated persons would shout down and attempt to suppress a speaker at a public event. And in my mind, a lecture in a college classroom qualifies as a public event (with the obvious and common sense restrictions; I don’t mean that anyone off the street is entitled to enter a college classroom lecture). That’s why I was so distressed at the SNAFU at Columbia a few years back, when an Arab professor and pro-Israel students repeatedly clashed in the classroom. Hurt feelings have no place in a valid and objective debate.
Israeli - Palestinian politics on college campuses almost always gets ugly and racist, as the loudest voices (on all sides) tend to be the most racist ones.
I found out the details today about just one of the ridiculous complaints that I mentioned.
Tenured prof from a top 3 ranked Public was discussing a leading woman in the field who did some groundbreaking research. He said to the class
A couple of students filed an official complaint against the prof because he addressed his comment to the ladies in the class. The complainants comment was “what about me? I might be looking for a heroine.”