The latest news from the academic world is all about trigger warnings and safe spaces, and these discussions have at times convinced me that I chose the right time to retire. When I first read the now well-known letter from University of Chicago’s dean of students, John Ellison, to incoming students, I applauded him. Having since read some of the firestorm of rebuttal sparked by his letter, I still agree with Dr. Ellison; but I think there are bigger questions that need to be considered.
Here’s the most controversial statement from Dr. Ellison’s letter:
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.
Having spent six decades of my life in school, as a student and an educator, I can say that the classroom was my safe space as a student, and I attempted to make my own classroom a safe space as an educator. Oh, I confess I was pretty clueless about such things in the earliest years; but as I worked with people and listened to their stories, I gained understanding and empathy for the experiences that might make them feel threatened or vulnerable.
I devoted a whole section of my opening-day lecture to making the classroom a place where everyone would be free to express their thoughts without judgment or ridicule. I warned them, and enforced the warnings during each class session, that no disparaging remarks about another student, no eye rolls, no long sighs, no laughs or even snorts or snickers would be tolerated. I encouraged disagreement and debate but taught students that the appropriate way to respond to someone with whom one disagrees is a respectful verbal rebuttal or questioning of the other person’s ideas, not ridicule or contempt. People who are made to feel foolish or embarrassed will stop participating, and that is counterproductive to the goal of stretching their minds and inspiring them to think and learn.
I loved my “alternative” students. I found them to be the brightest, most thoughtful people in the room. I went out of my way to make them feel safe and included, always speaking to them, not reacting to whatever it was that made them stand out visually.
I recall a student from long ago who first showed up in my classroom with more metal in his face than I’ve ever seen on one person. Everything was pierced. I don’t even know how on earth he got all of that metal to stay in his skin, but I do know that I never reacted to it in any way. M was a brilliant young man who added immensely to class discussions, was a wonderful writer, and was a general delight to be around. I spoke to him, not the metal. Eventually, I believe in the second class he took with me, he showed up metal free. I continued speaking to him, not his accessory choices; then finally one day, when only he could hear, I said, “M, have I told you yet how handsome you look without the metal?” He smiled shyly, and I had a friend. I used to see him fairly often at the local Barnes and Noble, and I always got a warm greeting and a hug.
Safe classrooms, sensitive teachers and professors, and an excellent counseling staff are, in my opinion, more effective means to avoid pushing students’ buttons than are rules or words on a syllabus. During my second year of teaching, a clueless 20-something, I encountered my first such situation: a student had a flashback in my classroom; I don’t think it was related to anything we were discussing, but she was clearly distraught. I’m embarrassed to say that I handled the situation badly, and it’s one of the things I’d like a chance to go back as my older self and redo.
Knowledge, awareness, and sensitivity are essential assets for everyone entrusted with the gift of educating. These assets, however, are not acquired as a result of hard fast rules handed down by administrators who often have limited interaction with students; and they don’t happen because the professor added a few words to the syllabus. They happen through training and experience. Every faculty, from elementary through post-graduate school, has meetings. Oh, we have meeeeeetings! We have workshops, in-house training days, seminars, guest speakers.
Sensitivity to students’ trigger points should be placed high on the list of topics for training and educating educators. There are speakers who are willing to share their own experiences in order to help teachers gain understanding. The counseling staff should also participate and offer guidelines for handling vulnerable students. Every school should give the faculty instruction on when and how to refer students to counselors and should employ counselors equipped to help students who feel threatened and know when and how to seek additional help from other resources.
Instead of intruding on educators’ academic freedom by telling them what they can discuss and how they have to discuss it and what they have to add to their syllabi, we should teach them to listen. I’ve shed many tears in my office as I listened to students’ stories. As my clueless 20-something self advanced through the decades, I took on an increasing awareness of the burdens and experiences represented in my classroom; and that awareness made my opening-day lecture about tolerance and respect more fervent each time I delivered it. Rules can’t do that; only love, respect, and training can. Words on a syllabus can’t do that; only listening and caring can.
During all of the decades I spent in school, there was always, both in school and in the larger society, a dichotomy between academia and “the real world.” That was not always spoken of as a good thing; but in terms of creating a safe atmosphere, it can be a very good thing. Ideally, every classroom should be a safe space where anything can be discussed from an intellectual, academic point of view, far removed from “the real world” where violence, addiction, and discrimination are real and their effects are devastating. And ideally, things learned in the atmosphere of the safe classroom can help people return to the real world better equipped to deal with past and present violence, discrimination, or crippling addiction.
I taught Shakespeare’s Othello. Othello becomes so consumed with jealousy that he murders the wife he adores and then takes his own life when he realizes he’s been duped and played by the villain Iago. I taught Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn and numerous other works which made liberal use of the N word. I taught Langston Hughes’s “What Happens to a Dream Deferred,” a short poem about the hopelessness of those whose lives are limited by poverty and racial injustice. I taught Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet with its forbidden love and the double suicide of young people caught in a struggle between two warring families who find peace and unity only over their children’s dead bodies. I taught Stephen Crane’s Maggie a Girl of the Streets, about a young girl for whom there is no safe space; poverty and violence prevail on the streets and follow her into her home. A grown-up Maggie finds her only safe space through suicide. I even taught the Old Testament Book of Job, about the battle between good and evil in the life of a man who chose to hold onto the good even in the depths of physical and psychic pain. I taught works that deal with war, domestic violence, human greed, racial prejudice, and just about any other topic you can name.
I often prefaced the study of a work with comments about what students could expect to encounter. “You’re going to find the N word used often in this book. Let’s talk about that. Is it going to be a problem for you?” “I know it’s unusual to study a book from the Bible in a college class, but there’s a lot to be learned from the Book of Job that has nothing to do with religion. You all have different views on the Bible and religion, and we’re not here to discuss those; we’re just going to look at this exemplary piece of literature called Job.” I suppose one would call those trigger warnings, but they never appeared on my syllabus, and no administrative edict required me to say those things. I said them because I had learned that the people sitting in front of me were often vulnerable and needed to feel safe before I could expect them to engage.
Writers have raised many questions regarding this issue, and I have a few more to add to the list.
One problem I see with issues such as this one was recently articulated by a TV news person, who said something like this: We’re all so quick to suit up in our team jerseys whenever we begin social dialogues. We’re so prone to see everything in black and white, either-or, this way or that way that many people are incapable of nuanced opinions.
One team responds to John Ellison’s U of Chicago letter: “Good! ‘Bout time someone stood up to those coddled, helicopter-parented brats and gave them a dose of the real world!” The team wearing the other jerseys responds: “The U of Chicago has no sensitivity to students’ inner struggles. They’re ignoring students’ needs and turning a blind eye to the hostility which many students feel on campus.” Both responses are simply the party line that goes with the speaker’s team jersey. What hope is there for students if even educators think on such a black-white level? What we need are some shades of gray.
Spokespeople for the U of Chicago have since attempted to clarify their position. They are not at all insensitive to people’s trigger points nor do they wish to further traumatize anyone, and they do in fact have programs to facilitate a more tolerant and inclusive campus environment. These spokespeople have expressed the shades of gray in their policies.
I also wonder what the expected outcome is for students who express discomfort with assigned readings, classroom discussions, or speakers’ topics. Will those students be allowed to opt out? Will they be given an alternate assignment? If so, will they miss some of the most valuable parts of their education? And what will happen to those students when they leave the safe cocoon of academia and return to “the real world”? Will they expect their spouses, employers, friends, and everyone else in their network to make the same accommodations? I would argue that school is the safe space, if it’s done right. Properly prepared professors and counselors can gently guide students through their trigger points, help them to engage rather than retreat, and send them back to the real world better prepared adults who can find their own safe spaces and manage their own lives, with all of the challenges that entails.
And what of the professors who dutifully insert the required warnings into their syllabi? Can we assume that they are prepared to follow through and guide students with love and empathy, or will many of them assume they’ve fulfilled their duty by providing the warnings?
I think trigger warnings and establishing safe spaces grossly oversimplifies some very complex issues. Putting words on a syllabus and giving people safe spaces to which they can escape are not necessarily bad; but in this educator’s opinion, they miss the real point, have limited effectiveness, and raise more questions than they answer.
Presidents of two other colleges weighed in on the discussion, without mentioning the U of Chicago letter and without criticizing the practice of trigger warnings and safe spaces.
Bowdoin College president Clayton Rose encouraged students:
Don’t avoid being uncomfortable, embrace it. Tomorrow, a week from now, a year from now, when you are in a discussion in class, listening to a speaker — in the dining hall, dorms, wherever — and you hear something that really pushes your buttons, that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up, you should run to it, embrace it, figure out why you are uncomfortable, unsettled, offended, and then engage with it. Engage with it in a thoughtful, objective, and respectful way. This is how you learn. This is how you become intellectually fearless. And this is how you change the world. Remind yourself that this is exactly why you are here.
Yale’s president Peter Salovey spoke to freshmen about “false narratives”: views of the world which people believe for years but which later prove unreliable.
Dr. Salovey encourages students to avoid such false narratives:
People naturally construct narratives to make sense of their world. I have been concerned to point out that in times of great stress, false narratives may dominate the public mind and public discourse, inflaming negative emotions and fanning discord. In our times especially, a wide array of instantaneous transmissions rapidly amplify such narratives. As a result, we sometimes find that anger, fear, or disgust can blind us to the complexity of the world and the responsibility to seek deeper understandings of important issues. Yale is a place for you to learn how and why to gravitate toward people who view things differently than you do, who will test your most strongly held assumptions. It is also a place to learn why it takes extraordinary discipline, courage, and persistence — often over a lifetime — to construct new foundations for tackling the most intractable and challenging questions of our time. You have come to a place where civil disagreements and deep rethinking are the heart and soul of the enterprise, where we prize exceptional diversity of views alongside the greatest possible freedom of expression.
I believe these two educators have delved far below the surface issue of trigger warnings and safe spaces and have confronted the real foundation of any system of education. They haven’t ignored the existence of trigger points, but they’ve moved to a deeper level of understanding and commitment.
Students should leave their learning environment different than they entered it. They should have confronted new ideas, dissected them, and extracted the best parts of them. They should have stretched and grown as a result of exchanging ideas with people who see the world very differently than they do. They should be prepared to live as informed, participating citizens of an increasingly global culture. I believe those things can happen only by helping students to find their own safety while they enthusiastically engage with new ideas. They’re going to need guidance, yes; but I don’t think they’re going to be helped much by simplistic rules.
Quotations are from https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/08/29/u-chicago-letter-new-students-safe-spaces-sets-intense-debate
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