Trigger warnings

You know how some guys are huge fans of the Second Amendment?  I’m like that with the First.  I joined the American Civil Liberties Union when I was a freshman at Ursinus College, and I am a proud card-carrying member of that organization, devoted as it is to the Bill of Rights.

I retired from teaching before “trigger warnings” were part of the college lexicon, but I am opposed to the whole idea of telling students that a particular reading might upset them.  

This does not mean that I was insensitive to the shock a student might feel when he or she read about “Nigger Jim” in Huck Finn.  Any reasonable professor or teacher knows that when he or she is assigning certain readings in a classroom, the students have to be prepared and the reading put into historical context.

I also believe that students must be made aware of our past.  Indians were once called “redskins.”  (Actually, that term is still used for a professional American football team.)  Chinese were called “chinks,” Italians “wops,” Jews “kikes.”  This is part of our history, unpleasant as it is, and students should be aware.

Opposition to “speech codes” and “safe spaces” and “trigger warning” is sometimes presented as a liberal vs. conservative issue.  Actually, it is more of a liberal vs. liberal issue, with liberals on both sides.

Today I would like to applaud the University of Chicago, which sent out a letter to incoming frosh students that said, “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.”

The University of Chicago is where President Obama taught con law.  They get it.

The quotation is from “University of Chicago Rebels Against Moves to Stifle Speech,” New York Times, Aug. 27, 2016, p. 1.