Nobody Can Take a Joke Anymore

[Undertoad]

University campuses were once not safe spaces for african americans

This is not what they mean. It actually means infantilist avoidance of any ideas or words or concepts or presentations they feel "scared" by. Here's what it actually is, via a NYT OpEd:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/22/op...ary-ideas.html

KATHERINE BYRON, a senior at Brown University and a member of its Sexual Assault Task Force, considers it her duty to make Brown a safe place for rape victims, free from anything that might prompt memories of trauma.

So when she heard last fall that a student group had organized a debate about campus sexual assault between Jessica Valenti, the founder of feministing.com, and Wendy McElroy*, a libertarian, and that Ms. McElroy was likely to criticize the term “rape culture,” Ms. Byron was alarmed. “Bringing in a speaker like that could serve to invalidate people’s experiences,” she told me. It could be “damaging.”

Ms. Byron and some fellow task force members secured a meeting with administrators. Not long after, Brown’s president, Christina H. Paxson, announced that the university would hold a simultaneous, competing talk to provide “research and facts” about “the role of culture in sexual assault.” Meanwhile, student volunteers put up posters advertising that a “safe space” would be available for anyone who found the debate too upsetting.

The safe space, Ms. Byron explained, was intended to give people who might find comments “troubling” or “triggering,” a place to recuperate. The room was equipped with cookies, coloring books, bubbles, Play-Doh, calming music, pillows, blankets and a video of frolicking puppies, as well as students and staff members trained to deal with trauma.
...
Now students worry whether acts of speech or pieces of writing may put them in emotional peril.
...
At Oxford University’s Christ Church college in November, the college censors (a “censor” being more or less the Oxford equivalent of an undergraduate dean) canceled a debate on abortion after campus feminists threatened to disrupt it because both would-be debaters were men. “I’m relieved the censors have made this decision,” said the treasurer of Christ Church’s student union, who had pressed for the cancellation. “It clearly makes the most sense for the safety — both physical and mental — of the students who live and work in Christ Church.”

A year and a half ago, a Hampshire College student group disinvited an Afrofunk band that had been attacked on social media for having too many white musicians; the vitriolic discussion had made students feel “unsafe.”

Last fall, the president of Smith College, Kathleen McCartney, apologized for causing students and faculty to be “hurt” when she failed to object to a racial epithet uttered by a fellow panel member at an alumnae event in New York. The offender was the free-speech advocate Wendy Kaminer, who had been arguing against the use of the euphemism “the n-word” when teaching American history or “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” In the uproar that followed, the Student Government Association wrote a letter declaring that “if Smith is unsafe for one student, it is unsafe for all students.”

“It’s amazing to me that they can’t distinguish between racist speech and speech about racist speech, between racism and discussions of racism,” Ms. Kaminer said in an email.

*I actually organized a dinner once where McElroy spoke about some of the strange turns of feminism. She's a marvelous intellectual and none of the women in my audience felt threatened.

[it]

Your kidding right? You've had a dinner party with Wendy McElroy? I love her work! I've binged-read half of her articles.

Her version of individualist feminism is what feminism was supposed to become... Before it mutated into the current form of a one eyed hunchback with the 3 wise monkey tramp stamp.

edit: Oh and just to clarify how ridicules it is - What Wendy does in her treaties about the political use of rape - telling rape victims that their rape is a trauma that can heal, that it doesn't make them into life long victims, doesn't define them, and even that it's probably not going to be the worst thing that will happen in their lives... It is probably the most important & empowering thing they are going to hear, especially with so many voices telling them otherwise, and that such voices respond by considering it "invalidating"....

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

The room was equipped with cookies, coloring books, bubbles, Play-Doh, calming music, pillows, blankets and a video of frolicking puppies, as well as students and staff members trained to deal with trauma.

I will bet you one million dollars that Ms. Byron attended regular therapy sessions as a child and teen. This is bad therapy at its finest. Consoling anxiety only reinforces the positive feedback loop.

[it]

It gets worst:

Parents Dedicate New College Safe Space In Honor Of Daughter

Local College LYNNFIELD, MA—In an effort to provide sanctuary for Lynnfield College students exposed to perspectives different from their own, a new campus safe space was dedicated Wednesday in honor of Alexis Stigmore, a 2009 graduate who felt kind of weird in class one time.

Addressing students at the dedication ceremony, parents Arnold and Cassie Stigmore noted that while the college had adequate facilities to assist victims of discrimination, abuse, and post-traumatic stress, it had until now offered no comparable safe space for students, like their beloved daughter, who encounter an academic viewpoint that gives them an uncomfortable feeling.

“When our Alexis felt weird after hearing someone discuss an idea that did not conform to her personally held beliefs, she had no place to turn,” said Arnold Stigmore, standing outside the $2 million space that reportedly features soothing music, neutral-colored walls, oversized floor cushions, fun board games, and a variety of snacks. “God forbid any of you, in your years at this institution, are ever confronted with an opinion you do not share. But if you are, you will have a refuge on this campus.”

As they have done often over the years, the Stigmores spoke openly about the time their daughter attended a class in which her political science professor “completely ambushed” her with standard course material that did not fit comfortably within her world outlook. Feeling unsettled, the college student reportedly had no way of coping with the challenging position that did not require her to consider the opinion, analyze its shortcomings, and think of possible counterarguments.

Alexis, then a dean’s-list student in her junior year, described spending 40 harrowing minutes of class in a distressed state, forced to look at the world through the eyes of a set of people she disagreed with.

“I’ll never forget the morning my daughter called and told me in a trembling voice, ‘Mom, my professor said some stuff today I didn’t like,’” recounted an emotional Cassie Stigmore, who also remarked that Alexis was left further traumatized upon looking at the course syllabus and finding it contained a book she did not want to read because it was written by an author whose politics she opposed. “As a parent, I’ll always wish I could have been there for her in that lecture hall, protecting her from those unwelcome concepts.”

After pausing to regain her composure, she continued, “If this safe space had been here then, my Alexis would have been able to surround herself immediately with people who would have reiterated and reinforced all the views she had when we first sent her to college—but sadly, it wasn’t, and she was left to deal with that new, unwanted idea on her own.”

Lynnfield president Dr. Timothy Crowley praised the Stigmores for their generous contribution and for raising awareness of an important issue. Since the family went public with Alexis’ story, a number of students have come forward saying they too have been exposed to alternative views on academic subjects, including several who Crowley applauded for their recent successful initiative to prevent a mainstream political figure from participating in a debate on campus out of concern that the exchange of ideas might make some people feel unsafe.

As he toured the new facility and examined a plaque commemorating Alexis Stigmore’s courage in the face of personal tragedy, Lynnfield class of 2017 member Jerrod Bryant told reporters he would be sure to use the space after attending his next Contemporary Civilization seminar, a course he is required to take even though it covers areas of study he personally disapproves of and believes should not exist..

“As soon as I stepped foot in this place, I knew I would never feel weird here,” Bryant said. “Every college should have a space like this, and thanks to caring parents like the Stigmores, we have one here for our community. It might be too late for Alexis, but it’s not too late for the rest of us.”

Sources confirmed a separate donation has also been made to provide a safe space and counseling services for straight white men at the college who won’t shut the fuck up about how they’re the real victims on campus these days

; - )
- Source
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[Lamplighter]

Check the source...

[Clodfobble]

Check the winky face.

[Undertoad]

Tr, yah, in a previous life I coordinated dinner speaker events with not only McElroy but (WSJ politico) John Fund and (occasional Limbaugh substitute) Walter Williams. I was part of an overall freedom movement until I decided large parts of it were nonsense and I walked away.

[DanaC]

Originally Posted by traceur

You know I have to ask Dana.... How do you feel about the following:

- The student's fight against allowing the Warren Farrel lecture.
- The effort for boycutting Israel in itself and the administration's response to it.
Both in the university of Toronto, both from 2012

They're both interesting cases, I think. They are also very distinct.

The case for boycotting Israel and therefore Israeli speakers from participating in campus and other events is something that crops up a lot in the UK. The point there is rarely about wanting to block what is being said, so much as it is making a political statement about the wider culture the speaker nominally represents. It's a little like people boycotting South African sports during the Apartheid era. There are arguments for and against but they are not really arguments of free speech and acceptance of alternative views.

The Farrell lecture is a difficult one. I can totally understand why some people at that campus would not to host someone with such extreme views, and one supported by others of even more extreme views. I know I wouldn't want him or his ilk anywhere near me :P But - that kind of response is a double-edged sword. Without the protest, and without the likelihood of such protest, I suspect his event would have had fairly low attendance and be fairly low impact.

And if you're going down that route, then you really need to make sure your own house in order. Would those same people have objected to someone from the more extreme edge of the women's movement giving a lecture about how all men are inherently violent rapists and oppressors?


I think sometimes it is a mistake to make a noise about it. The same argument that says we shouldn't give, to go back to racism for example, fascistic political parties the oxygen of publicity and the legitimacy of debate by including them in the political debate scene, also really makes the case for not boycotting them in the first place.

I have very conflicted feelings on both of the examples you cite. I can see the arguments for and against boycotting them. Overall, I am in favour of college and university students shaping the ethos and contours of the intellectual space they inhabit. The downside of that is that most of those students are in their teens and early 20s and kids of that age who engage in politics tend to be very fierce about it. That's natural - it's a big part of becoming politically engaged and learning where you stand on things and what really matters to you. But it does mean that the responses to this sort of thing often lack nuance.

[DanaC]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

.

Ah. Yeah, no, that's bullshit. If you have a problem with the word rape - or are likely to be traumatised by someone arguing against the term 'rape culture' then that is a lecture or debate you should avoid.

There is a point at which attempts to validate experience and outweigh the social and legal paradigm of victim-blaming becomes in itself victim-making. Noone who has been raped should be made to feel like they are to blame, and anybody who has been raped has the right to feel about that however the fuck they do feel about that - but this kind of stuff encourages someone in that position to take it deep and make it a part of themselves at an identity level. If anything this kind of approach, to me, seems potentially damaging to people who are vulnerable and young.

I also have a real problem with the way people get offended or hurt by the use of a particular word, regardless of the context in which it is used. It's a bit like that whole furore with Benedict Cumberbatch when he refered to 'coloured' actors. The comment he was making was a progressive and inclusive one - but he thoughtlessly used a word which is outdated and to many people offensive. Everyone focused on his use of that word, instead of what he was saying. Similarly, the word nigger was once in common currency and is naturally present in the literature from that time. If you're going to study that literature, you're going to encounter it. I hate the use of 'the n word'.

I have a similar issue with feminists who get really upset if a guy refers to women as 'birds' or calls them 'love'. If the content of what someone is saying is inoffensive then why take deliberate offence at a clumsy or unconscious use of a particular word? Why get offended if someone is a little behind the times - or just didn't get that memo. I routinely have to think about what is the currently acceptable term for people with disabilities, for example. And I'm conscious about this stuff and take a reasonably high degree of responsibility for my use of terminology and the impact it could have on others. The reality is that on this the goal posts are ever-changing. Each generation reinvents the lexicon. That's ok - but we shouldn't be crucifying people for just for employing the wrong word, nor should we be cultivating a sense that we are all just bouncing around from one PTSD inducing trauma to the next in which a word alone can trigger a psychological breakdown.

Words can be weapons. I do believe that. They can cause great harm. They are the foundation of some of the worst acts of cruelty we as humans engage in. They shore up hatred and inequality and they sow the seeds of violence against those who are different from us. But only if that's what they are used for. The people who fought against racism and oppression in America's civil rights movement used language and terminology that would make us deeply uncomfortable today.

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by DanaC

I routinely have to think about what is the currently acceptable term for people with disabilities, for example.

I habitually use the word retarded, not as a factual description but in the same way that Sarah Silverman used the word "gay." I don't actually feel bad about it, but I know I have to stop, so I've been trying. It's the only other word that has been elevated to "R-word" levels of anagrammatical euphemism. But I haven't figured out what to replace it with.

[it]

Originally Posted by DanaC

The point there is rarely about wanting to block what is being said, so much as it is making a political statement about the wider culture the speaker nominally represents.

That's probably does happen and was probably part of it, since the demands did include cutting ties with Israeli universities and that's part of how they bring Israeli speakers, but it's not what I meant. The demand was a demand that the university of toronto itself boycott israeli product or Canadian and american companies that trade with israeli companies. The relevance to this is that in that case, in contrast with many other cases, the administration intervened and disbanded the group that was petitioning and relying for the boycott.

Originally Posted by DanaC

And if you're going down that route, then you really need to make sure your own house in order. Would those same people have objected to someone from the more extreme edge of the women's movement giving a lecture about how all men are inherently violent rapists and oppressors?

An interesting thing about extremes, they very much depend on where your own opinions and those of the people around you stand in order to define a relative norm.

I had my own experience with that regarding the first topic, where opinions that would be considered extreme left wing or extreme right wing here within Israel appear equally right wing to those with the political beliefs regarding the middle east in places like the UK/France/Sweden, while from an Israeli perspective the opinions about the middle east and their implications are only distinguishable from Nazism by the lack of sexy uniforms

Which brings me to the next and best example: Godwin's law. The reason it exists as a phenomena in the first place is because almost any stance is extreme and fanatic relatively to someone else's further down the spectrum, and there's no agreed upon zero.

Likewise, in the interview I linked above, one of the dominant complaint made by the one representing "radical feminism" was the attribution of radicalism and extremism to her stance to began with - from her perspective it's not an extreme, it's something she is used to getting school credits for.

The point been, where the norm is will generally be relative to the bubble of information and perspectives you are used to consider and encounter, very much dependent on your own subjective norm.

[it]

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

I habitually use the word retarded, not as a factual description but in the same way that Sarah Silverman used the word "gay." I don't actually feel bad about it, but I know I have to stop, so I've been trying. It's the only other word that has been elevated to "R-word" levels of anagrammatical euphemism. But I haven't figured out what to replace it with.

You have many options - idiot and moron are probably the most common, dumb & dummy are better for a softer more joking blow.

Personally my favorite is "batshit crazy", I adopted it off of pen & teller. When something seems so delusional it seems insane, and you don't have to feel bad for making fun of someone or something for been stupid without their control, since batshit crazy kind of suggests more of willful ignorance IMO.

Also it's really fun to say when you are pissed off. Try calling someone or something batshit crazy without wanting to throw your hands at the air dramatically, I dare yea.

I.E. The PC censorship in colleges has gone batshit crazy

(It might be offensive to batman, IDK).

[Clodfobble]

Oh I'm good for names/nouns, my favorite is "shitwit."

But saying, "Well THAT'S batshit crazy," doesn't have the same dismissiveness. It's that great frowning throaty Southern "arr" syllable in retarded that just can't be replicated. "Moronic" comes closest, I guess. I should re-watch some Ron White, I bet there's something useful there.

[it]

A really interesting comment I found on a relevant PBS idea channel discussion:

I am a literature professor. I work at colleges and with students. I'm on the front line of this. There has been little formal research done on this topic, so much of what we have to go on is the stories of professors and students. I know the internet doesn't like personal evidence, but this is my life. I live this every day.

Unlike some instructors, I don't blame the students or their generation for this at all. It's not a generational issue. Some of the complaints are framed as 'get off my lawn' style generational conflict, and there is some of that, but it's not the root or the import.

Here's the thing (if you'll allow someone who works in the industry to present some information without citations):

Beginning in the 80s, and accelerating ever since, there has been a strong push to run colleges more like businesses. More like corporations, to be specific. The structure of the leadership, the marketing, the profitcentric mindset, all of that is new on a historical scale, just the last thirty years or so, and it is caused by the corpratization of the schools.

This does a lot of things. One of the worst, from my personal perspective, is that it's shifted the place where the money is spent at colleges and universities. Hiring good professors used to be more than 60% of the budget at many schools, and now it's less than 20%. This is caused by organizations which are extremely top-heavy (like 10 administrators for every 1 full-time professor (this is not an exaggeration)), and reliant almost entirely on part-time instructors who are (as Mike points out) over-worked and underpaid (that's me, BTW).

That's not what we're talking about here though. One of the other effects of this corporatization is a shift in thinking of the students as 'clients' rather than 'pupils' (Mike touches on this but doesn't really connect it up, I think). In some ways, this can be a good thing, and we can talk about that too, but there is a definite and visible amount of what some might call "coddling" going on. This presents in a few different flavors, but what it boils down to is this: There is a shift in how student concerns are handled by the administration.

Once upon a time, if a student went to a dean and said that they were having a problem, they would almost always be dismissed. Don't like your grade? Don't like the material? Don't think you should have to take this class? Feeling discriminated against? harassed? stressed? Too bad. You can go to class and get through it, or fail. The Professor is always right. Unless there was a serious, public infraction with evidence and many complaints, the administration would very rarely take the side of a student over a professor. This was bad.

Over the last few decades this has shifted. If students are customers, and customers are always right, then we should listen to them. At first it was refreshing. Students who had legitimate complaints were actually being listened to, professors that everyone knew were bad, like the guy who refused to let women talk in class or the gal who just read the book to the students instead of teaching, were getting let go. There was change, and bad professors were no longer protected by the institution.

However, the pendulum continues to swing. Schools are starting to flop the old ways, and now many schools, especially private ones, are taking the side of the student over the professor every time. If a student complains, it's the professor's problem, not the student's problem, always. (Not every school is like this. I've taught at both public and private schools, and private (profitcentric) schools are more likely to be this way). This is bad. Maybe it's not as bad as the old ways, but it's still something we can recognize and hope to fix.

I can tell you stories (like the time I had to remove a classic literary work from my syllabus because a student told the dean it was pornographic, or the time the school changed my student's grade up by a letter because her mother came in and yelled at the campus president, or the time I almost took a job with a school which had a policy that every student should always get an 'A' or "the professor has failed") but those are all anecdotes, and the internet hates anecdotes.

I know a lot of professors. Not one of them does not have an anecdote about the school taking the student's side too far. Are all of them valid? Maybe not. But it definitely IS a thing. There is a shift in the way we treat students and teachers in this country, and some people, apparently including our President, don't think much of the patterns they see.

"Trigger warnings" is only a small part of this huge issue. Every professor I know is fine with trigger warnings themselves (though most think it's dumb to call them that) and many, including myself, already had notices about potentially uncomfortable content in their syllabi before this ever became a public issue. What professors (the ones I know) are worried about is how far it will go. It may be a slippery slope fallacy, but we've seen the accommodation train go really far in the last decades, and there are already a few stories of institutions actually banning works that the literature professors want to use based on the complaints of uncomfortable students.

Honestly, it's really more of a symptom of a much grander disease. In general, instructor autonomy (or "academic freedom" if you prefer) is being eroded just a bit every day, in a thousand different little ways, and its adding up to a teaching world that seems very different from the one I started teaching in only 11 years ago. Imagine how it feels to someone who has been teaching for 30 years or more...

None of this is the fault of the students. It's all the fault of an administration focused on pleasing customers (and making moneys) rather than teaching pupils.

One final thing I want you to consider: If someone actually has PTSD they should be working with the student services department at the school to make sure that this is on file. It's the student services department's job to inform instructors when they have a student with any kind of disability or special need, then the instructor can, and is required to (by federal law) accommodate that student's needs. Professors are not allowed to give special treatment to ANY student, no matter their condition or needs unless they go through those channels (again: federal law). This means that any student who is being made uncomfortable in the classroom without any warning is in one of four cases:

They do not have a diagnosed disability or condition, they are simply uncomfortable with the topic. (solution: No solution required)
They have a diagnosed disability or condition, but they failed to properly report that condition to student services. (solution: student should be working with student services)
They reported the condition, and the instructor was not notified properly. (solution: student services personnel should be reminded to do their jobs)
They reported the condition, the instructor was notified, but the instructor ignored the notice. (solution: instructor should be reminded to do their job)

Note that none of those solutions involve removing the work in questions from the syllabus.

I'm sorry for no citations.

[it]

...Personally, I am finding myself at odds with a lot of that conversation, and a difficult time to not find the idea of PTSD as a disability to be repulsive and offensive in itself (yet - should be allowed to be said). I've have been diagnosed with PTSD, with a first and second opinion annoyingly agreeing, but have never actually thought of it as a disability, and can't even bring myself to think of it as such. Unlike physical disabilities, panic attacks and flashbacks don't prevent me from doing anything I want, they just means there's a bit more shit to go through while your on the way.

I openly seek and sometimes create discussions where I know I might be triggered into panic attacks, not because I find feeling like I can breath exhausting and want to take occasional breaks, but precisely because these are topics that have a lot of weight and personal involvement for me. My own nerves - however raw - are my own responsibility.