NYT: In College and Hiding from Scary Ideas

@mathmom, I think the military uses an atom for atheism.

I understand the concept of a safe space and I certainly have them at my U and I work in one.
However, I’d be insulted if I went into a “safe space” that had coloring books and whatnot. That’s… ridiculous.

But please, for those of you who have never experienced severe trauma, do not belittle those who have.
I still can’t watch movies with rape scenes as it causes flashbacks. I don’t expect the school to cater to me but I completely understand those who need a space where they can be free of that.

From Ithaca College:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-lukianoff/talking-on-eggshells-in-c_b_6955478.html

"Imagine a hotline that you could call any time to anonymously report your neighbors for perceived slights against you. These slights aren’t crimes. Rather, this hotline is for opinions, jokes, or even gestures that could be seen as an affront to one’s “race, class, gender, sexual orientation, ability and more.”

“Legal action” could potentially follow for the offender, even if you, the accuser, remain anonymous. At minimum, the offending expression is collected in a catalogue of all the other unintentional slights, politically incorrect jokes, drunken confessions, and misinterpreted statements that have offended somebody, somewhere.

This might sound like the fictional premise for a dystopian novel, but to the Student Government Association at New York’s Ithaca College, this premise sounds ideal–it’s their plan to root out “microaggressions” on campus."

Here is a link to the school paper:

http://theithacan.org/news/ic-sga-passes-bill-to-create-system-to-report-microaggressions/

It seems nothing can be said these days without someone taking offense. Where is the line drawn between someone being a jerk and “legal action” being necessary?

I find this interesting in light of the free speech discussion on the SAE thread. Do these microaggressions create a hostile environment just as the chant did (in the opinion of some)? If no, why not? These students sure seem to think it is a problem.

I do have to wonder why some kinds of trauma merit trigger warnings and others don’t. A lot of students have had awful experiences losing a loved one to cancer (or surviving it themselves). No one questions the reality of that experience or the fact that it can cause deep scars. But we don’t put trigger warnings on discussions of cancer or of hospice care.