I really like @pittsburghscribe’s synthesis. Why must the concepts of free speech on campus be so black and white? We are all human beings capable of meaningful interpersonal communication. Is is so hard to support the general rule that all voices may be heard, that no one point of view will be permitted to silence another point of view, and that we should strive to handle such matters sensibly and sensitively, without written rules that cover every conceivable communication?
“Never inviting speakers in the first place is very interesting to me in regards to free speech.”
Never inviting speakers has absolutely nothing to do with free speech, dstark.
The U of Chicago hasn’t invited any of the following 3 people to speak on campus: Kim Kardashian, David Duke, me.
That’s not a violation of anyone’s free speech rights. I’m curious how you think it relates at all to free speech. Neither a public or a private u is obligated to host anyone who wants to say anything.
Post 577… First sentence.
And whether the student handbook is given the same weight/stricter than an employee handbook in that regard or not also provides a glimpse into the student/institutional culture of the college concerned.
Some students by inclination or by necessity of the profession the higher-ed institution is intended to prepare a student for would opt for the former type which includes:
Fundamentalist oriented religious colleges
Federal Service Academies/Military Themed Colleges(i.e. VMI, Citadel, etc)
Other colleges which are run along similar lines.
Others students would find the former types of institutions to be too strict/stifling for the types of academic and social experiences they desire from their college experiences. Most UChicago alums I’ve known from undergrad and graduate divisions would definitely be of this persuasion.
For the perspective of current uchicago students and some alums, I’ve been reading the uchicago FB “Overheard at Uchicago.” There’s great debate going on over there, particularly in the post of an article from intellectualtakeout.org. If you’re interested:
https://m.facebook.com/groups/2709015299/
Insert: m.facebook.com.
^ just search for Overheard at UChicago in Facebook
I would submit the same is true for supporters of safe places. I have yet to see a supporter articulate how space spaces “represent to free and open intellectual inquiry.” Many posters state that they do, but not how/why; it is just stated as a given.
“Take it as a challenge, if you want to.”
^ Go over to the overheard at uchicago Facebook page and you’ll get the answers you seek from the students/alums themselves.
How is that suspending freedom of speech? This is great because it promotes freedom of speech by not barring people with other views from speaking. This way students get so many different perspectives and that’s the best education right there
Sorry, I don’t do FB.
The issue with FB comments is they are mostly opinions masquerading as arguments and facts.
Some have said that there is an element of grandstanding in the U. of C. letter and that it is more symbolic than real insofar as the actual conduct of profs in their classes. This may be true. However, if so, this doesn’t exclude it also being a statement of principle and of defiance of the comme il faut that rules peer institutions. You can’t read the letter without thinking of instances of these phenomena on other campuses. The writer clearly also had those instances in mind and was sending a message: It won’t happen here.
The letter comes out of the deep history of the origin and development of the University, and it invokes that history. Some of us old alums have wondered whether all the reforms at the University during the past decade or so - reforms that enhanced its popularity with the general pool of intelligent status-seeking students and arguably made it more ivy-leaguish - had had the effect of diminishing its historic commitment to uninhibited and often unconventional discourse. The letter convinced many of us that the University was still the University of old. The letter seeks to say this not only to its incoming students but to the world at large. You could call it a branding statement if it were not also a profound and deeply meant statement of principle. It is really both.
The political allegiances that lie behind most of the comments are inevitable. Free speech once belonged to the Left. Now it apparently belongs to the Right. The political stuff lowers everyone’s IQ and is ephemeral in any event. The University ought to ignore it and do the thing it has always done: Crescat Scienta; vita excolatur!
Did you even read the list of disinvited speakers and the reasons for their disinvitations? Many are the work of those on the right.
And “free speech” doesn’t mean freedom from the consequences of your speech. In fact, if your free speech includes stuff that some people find great fault with, their choosing not to pay you to speak to them is also an exercise of free speech. Nobody’s stifling the disinvitees; safe spaces don’t stifle anyone; content warnings don’t stifle discussion or teaching. Quite the contrary (if you read some of the excellent articles linked in this thread, you’ll see): these methods enable free speech, the speech of individuals and groups whose voices haven’t traditionally been allowed in the conversation.
Trigger warnings and safe spaces are just new labels for old-fashioned manners and sensitivity. I use them all the time when dealing with people.
If you are about to deliver bad news to a friend, you invite them to sit down; you calm your demeanor and theirs, you prepare them. This is a “trigger warning” but we don’t always call it that.
If you are addressing a group of troubled teenagers, you make sure they know that they are not being judged and their honesty will be respected. This is creating a “safe space” and it’s just common decency to do this.
I object to the mandating of such things, however. Human interaction is best learned by trial and error; by experience and maturity. Nobody ever forced me to act as I do in the above examples. Nobody ever protested me if I didn’t act that way. College kids should not be taught to expect “trigger warnings” and “safe spaces.” I absolutely agree that they should exist as a product of good human development, but they need to be a part of our natural experience, and when the rules of common decency are violated, the violator can be addressed as needed.
If some professor is buffoonish enough to plow forward into hurtful subjects without regard to his audience, or if some classmate is insensitive enough to gloat about an inappropriate sexual encounter, then the natural consequences of such conduct should take care of the matter. This can mean addressing the individual human to human; if the transgression is great, it can mean escalating a complaint. I think that is what U Chicago does, and has always done…left these matters to individual discretion and consequences. U Chicago rejects some black and white one-size-fits-all rule mandating some specified conduct on these matters.
And isn’t this what we want young people to learn? How to handle the buffoon or the rude jerk when confronted with one? If you mandate safe spaces and trigger warnings, how will our kids learn how to handle things when they inevitably happen to them?
Which nobody has done. Literally nobody.
Did I imagine the UC Santa Barbara resolution a couple of years ago mandating trigger warnings?
I don’t recall if the resoution actually passed or was incorporated, but yes, there are definitely campus groups seeking mandatory trigger warnings. To which I am opposed.
Nobody in this thread has supported mandatory content warnings, and if any colleges require them, they are in a vanishingly small minority (Google isn’t finding any for me, but that could be user error of course).
I have not read all 40 pages of this thread, so I apologize if I’m repeating something that someone else might have already said.
There are hundreds of excellent colleges & universities in the U.S. Univ. of Chicago is just one of them. Putting aside the content of the letter to incoming Fall 2016 students, in my opinion, one of the purposes of going to college is for you, the student, to be challenged. To meet & get to know people who are different than you. To get out of your comfort zone intellectually. One of the best ways to truly understand the opposing point of view from yours is to have to debate in FAVOR of it.
If parents and students are truly offended by the Univ. of Chicago’s position on trigger warnings and safe spaces, then don’t enroll your child / yourself as a student there. Go somewhere else. There are MANY other universities that would LOVE to have you! And you’ll get an excellent education at other schools, too.
At the same time, I think that choosing which college you go to based on how many liberals, conservatives, etc. go there is a foolish idea. Just like the whole concept of “I don’t want my son/daughter to go to College ___ in ___ state because it’s a blue/red state.”
I agree with most of what you say, but I certainly don’t want my kids attending school in a state that allows other students to pack heat.
“Nobody in this thread has supported mandatory content warnings”
Really? Then I’m confused. What is it then that you are supporting? I think that’s exactly what the letter says. U of C will not mandate intellectual safe spaces or trigger warning. They are not preventing a professor from individually offering warnings. If that wasn’t clear in the letter, they made it clear in news appearances afterwards.
I thought some on this thread believed that students should be able to demand that certain content be labeled and certain speakers be disinvited. I certainly think that is what some of the students on Facebook are proposing.