Some Students at University of Minnesota Demand ‘Trigger Warnings’
Luckily, not everyone thought this was a good idea. If you can’t study a subject without ‘trigger warnings’ do you really belong in college?
Anthony Gockowski of the College Fix reports.
Demand for ‘trigger warnings’ at University of Minnesota meets opposition
While some University of Minnesota student leaders have demanded the use of trigger warnings before teaching provocative course materials, suggesting it’s the only way to ensure a “safe campus,” other students and scholars are unsupportive of the request, and bristle at the notion of stifling the educational process.
“Trigger warnings” aim to alert students of future disturbing content. Such a warning is, supporters argue, particularly appropriate for victims of sexual assault and war veterans.
Many academics see warnings as a serious threat to academic freedom, but the school’s student government passed a resolution in October asking professors to add “trigger warnings” to course syllabi. The resolution called for alternative course materials for students with post-traumatic stress disorder.
After the vote, the Minnesota Daily campus newspaper voiced concern, saying “higher education, especially the liberal arts, is only successful when the classroom takes time to address difficult topics head-on.”
The Daily’s editorial echoed a similar piece from April declaring trigger warnings a bad idea, noting “universities are not safe houses for students, and they should not protect students from uncomfortable or emotionally provocative lessons. This student-driven proposal seeks to shield other students from duress, and though it may be well-intentioned, it has no place in a community of intellectual growth.”
Meanwhile, the faculty senate at the University of Minnesota has yet to hold a discussion on the non-binding student resolution. It remains to be seen when and if they will.
Professor Eva von Dassow, the faculty senate vice chair, told The College Fix in a recent email interview that “any requirement to add trigger warnings to syllabi immediately runs into serious problems.”
Von Dassow said she thinks the ambiguous language used in defining a “trigger” has made it “impossible to know what may trigger any of the many and various individuals taking courses.”
Demand for ‘trigger warnings’ at University of Minnesota meets opposition (The College Fix)
Comments
California’s Proposition 65 warning: “This area contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm.” This warning will be found at the entrance of just about every business in California whether or not there are listed chemicals on site. Businesses do this because they want to shield themselves from litigation in the event that a listed chemical might be found on their premises. Likewise, all professors can shield themselves from complaint by posting a warning at the top of their syllabi. Maybe the wording could be: “This class contains ideas known to snowflakes to cause angst, grief, butthurt or other emotional harm.”
In my experience, most English Lit classes need trigger warnings.
About 95% of the Eng Lit Profs are nut jobs, perverts, or who knows what.
I never took any art classes, but from what I’ve heard, they run about the same.
Why not have colleges demand of incoming students, as a prerequisite to enrollment, that they sign a waiver form acknowledging that they may, in the course of their studies, encounter material that they consider to be provocative or controversial, and, that they consent to be exposed to such material?
If these students are so hyper-sensitive, why attend college at all? Why expose one’s self to an environment that (ostensibly) is supposed to involve the free and unabashed exchange of ideas and unfettered debate? I can’t figure out if this whole “trigger warning” nonsense is merely a self-aggrandizing stunt undertaken by self-perceived “victims,” or, a conscious attempt to through up roadblocks to the broaching of topics that people are uncomfortable contemplating or discussing.
In people who have PTSD, treatment involves desensitization.
That is, people are taught NOT to avoid triggers, because you cannot avoid them in daily life, and it might actually worsen your symptoms to do so.
There is no science behind the demand for “trigger warnings.”
It is instead another demand for compliance to the increasingly silly and capricious whims by damaged and unscrupulous people.
Theodore Dalrymple: