Campus Trigger Warnings Threaten Speech and Treat Students Like Children
If we want colleges to train students to be rational members of a democratic society, mandating trigger warnings is an excellent way to ensure that we fail.
Foter / Creative Commons AttributionWith the passage of the 26th Amendment in 1971,
America gave 18-year-olds the right to vote and affirmed that they
are legally adults. They can elect legislators, bear arms, and
serve in the military. It stands to reason, then, that these young
citizens should be able to handle the mature themes that they are
likely to encounter as part of a true liberal arts education.
So why are today's colleges moving toward implementing a paternalistic warning system for classes that include discussions of potentially sensitive topics, such as violence, sex, racism, and abuse? The New York Times reports: "Colleges across the country this spring have been wrestling with student requests for what are known as 'trigger warnings,' explicit alerts that the material they are about to read or see in a classroom might upset them or, as some students assert, cause symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder in victims of rape or in war veterans."
In February of this year, Oberlin College posted a Sexual Offense Resource Guide on its website that asked professors to proceed with caution when discussing topics that might distress "survivors of sexualized violence in their classrooms," in order to "ensure a welcoming and supportive environment" for them.
Unsurprisingly, however, this purported effort to create a more sensitive classroom was highly politicized. Oberlin's guide stressed that "sexual misconduct is inextricably tied to issues of privilege and oppression." Faculty members were advised to "[e]ducate [themselves] about racism, classism, sexism, heterosexism, cissexism, ableism, and other issues of oppression" and to be aware of how these issues could impact classroom discussions. The guide referred to such topics as "triggers," defining that term as "something that recalls a traumatic event to an individual."
So what advice did Oberlin have for professors whose course material might contain potential "triggers"? In a section entitled "Understand triggers, avoid unnecessary triggers, and provide trigger warnings" (authors' emphasis), the guide asked professors to "remove triggering material when it does not contribute directly to the course learning goals" and to "[i]ssue a trigger warning" when such material could not be eliminated altogether. Amazingly, Oberlin also noted that "[a]nything could be a trigger—a smell, song, scene, phrase, place, person, and so on."
Oberlin professors were less than thrilled with essentially being required to read the minds of their students to determine what sounds or smells might cause them trauma. Following widespread criticism, the policy was quickly taken down.
In The New Republic, Jenny Jarvie provides a brief history of trigger warnings: "Initially, trigger warnings were used in self-help and feminist forums to help readers who might have post traumatic stress disorder to avoid graphic content that might cause painful memories, flashbacks, or panic attacks. … As the Internet grew, warnings became more popular, and critics began to question their use." While trigger warnings may have originated in an obscure corner of the Internet, their arrival on campus shows that they are transitioning into other realms and having a larger impact on discourse.
Oberlin's policy required faculty to act as parents: Much like a mother accompanying her young child to an action film, professors were asked to determine whether the students in their classes were capable of handling certain content. The important difference, however, is that college students aren't ten years old. They're adults. As such, they need to be able to handle topics that adults encounter in daily life.
While Oberlin appears to be reconsidering its trigger warning guidelines, the concept is gaining traction at other universities. The University of California, Santa Barbara, (UCSB) is in the process of implementing such a policy after student leaders passed a "Resolution to Mandate Warnings For Triggering Content in Academic Settings" in February. The UCSB resolution uses less broad language than Oberlin's guide, but its effect is much the same. It urges professors to provide trigger warnings on their syllabi for any course materials that touch upon issues such as "Rape, Sexual Assault, Abuse, Self-Injurious Behavior, Suicide, Graphic Violence, Pornography, Kidnapping, and Graphic Depictions of Gore."
Unlike the Oberlin policy, the UCSB resolution does not explicitly ask professors to avoid using such material altogether. But it still places professors in the parental position of determining whether a particular book or film contains content that will distress their students and issuing appropriate warnings "well in advance of triggering content." The resolution explains that students who might feel unable to discuss such issues will then have "the choice to be present or not." In other words, they can decide that a particular lecture may be just too difficult for them to endure, and can simply stay home that day.
An Inadequate Solution for a Medical Problem
So what's the problem with being sensitive? After all, the stated intent of the UCSB resolution is to protect those who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), an acknowledged condition that affects roughly 7.7 million American adults, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. Oberlin's advice doesn't mention PTSD specifically, but still attempts to prevent students from "recall[ing] a traumatic event."
PTSD is a serious issue among survivors of everything from rape to terrorist attacks like 9/11. But if students are suffering from PTSD to the extent that even curricular mentions of violence (sexual or otherwise) bring on symptoms of the disorder, that's an actual mental health problem that should be addressed by medical or counseling professionals—not faculty making their best guesses at which Shakespeare play is too much for their students to handle.
If it were possible to live in a world without triggering events, the arguments advanced by trigger warning advocates might have more merit. But students will eventually leave campus, entering a world filled with triggers—sights, smells, sounds, and traumatic events alike. Attempts to create a bubble-wrapped campus environment devoid of triggers is doomed to failure because of their unpredictable nature. Even if such an effort were to succeed, the "best" possible outcome would be to delay the diagnosis and treatment of students with PTSD for four years, rather than getting them the help they will need to deal with life after college.
What's the Cost?
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You call them trigger warnings; I call them spoilers. I demand spoiler alerts when trigger warnings are going to give away hints of any twists or shocking developments coming up.
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The phrase itself suggests we're not responsible for our emotional responses, that we're passive actors who cannot control ourselves in the face of a "trigger". Talk about a lack of agency. What a bunch of friggin babies.
The world is a disturbing place sometimes. Learn how to control yourself.
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The phrase itself suggests we're not responsible for our emotional responses, that we're passive actors who cannot control ourselves in the face of a "trigger".
Well, that does describe most liberals.
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I could not even dream up a better example:
"UC Santa Barbara professor Miller-Young steals young anti-abortion protester’s sign, apparently assaults protesters, says she ‘set a good example for her students’"
Because she was triggered. In other words "Look what you made me do!"
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In some Eastern cultures, losing one's temper reflects badly on the person who lost their temper. It shows a lack of self control. They look upon these liberals who blame others then they lose their temper as weak-willed fools.
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In my Western culture it makes you look like a real jackass too.
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In my Western culture it makes you look like a real jackass too.
One of my kids was 5 when the extended version of Lord of the Rings came out. She watched them with me and was fine until we got to The Mouth of Sauron. Yeah, he's very creepy.
My kid hops down off the couch, announces this isn't appropriate for her, and promptly goes to her room.
I stopped the movie and went up after her, worried about her reaction... expecting to see her in a fetal position or something. Nah, she's sitting on the floor, already playing with some toys. She looks up, sees the look on my face and asks me if I'm OK. -
Perhaps, but why then are Asian-Americans the latest group to be gravitating toward Democrats in their voting habits?
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I'm not sure what that has to do with anything.
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the guide asked professors to "remove
triggeringmaterial when it does not contribute directly to the course learning goals" -
So is that Bailey chick gonna come back and tell us how we all need to be more sensitive and accommodating because her BFF Tiffany breakdowns everytime she sees a video or the professor mentions something involving cars, because her daddy didnt buy her the BMW he promised and she had to "settle" for a slightly used Lexus, and that caused her intense mental and physical anguish.
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Oberlin College, whenever I hear about crazy in colleges, they are near the center.
I guess $60,000 plus a year buys you a lot of crazy. In particular crazy people who think that people who spend $60,000 a year for a college are oppressed.
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The grievance machine has redefined oppression to include everything, in which case it actually means nothing.
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When I first went to college in the 80's, professors would sometimes talk about sensitive or outrageous topics - just to shock us out of the suburban mindset most of us grew up with and to get us to open our minds.
Now the old hippies running colleges are trying their best to close the western mind. I can find more open and insightful social debate at a New York comedy club than I can at Columbia.
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"Whaddaya mean I didn't turn in my paper on the Industrial Revolution? Could you be more insensitive? I freaked out when I read Stephen King's The Mangler some years back, and now any mention of industrial machinery triggers me. I'll let you get away with it this time, but in future, any nonsense about missed papers and I report it to your department head."
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Let's just have a generic trigger warning: "Raises issues that you will have to face as an adult."
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"If I wanted to face adult issues, I wouldn't have gone to college, I would have gotten a job."
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"Trigger Warning - Reality Ensures: What you want doesn't really matter."
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This stuff reminds me of the old joke about a doctor warning his patient "The slightest shock may kill you", whereupon the patient drops dead.
It's trigger warnings all the way down.
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OT, but still college-related:
Is College Worth It? Clearly, New Data Say
Trigger warning: Treats the law of supply and demand as something other than the teatard myth that all right-thinking people know it to be.
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One thing I've been told is that the Griggs doctrine effectively bars intelligence tests for jobs, so employers end up looking for a college diploma as the best proxy for intelligence and stick-to-itiveness.
What would happen if employers could use alternative measures of these qualities without fearing a discrimination lawsuit?
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Sheldon Richman trigger warning:
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A nuclear trigger warning, as it were.
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Learn how to control yourself.
BOSSY!
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*golf clap*
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What about me? Where's my trigger warning? Don't I deserve to be forewarned when somebody is about to say something so colossally ignorant it will cause my blood pressure to spike to some potentially lethal level?
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Short explanation:
Since undergrad institutions now do what high schools used to do (and grad school now does what undergrad used to do), undergrad institutions treat people 18 and older as minors.