University Of Chicago Takes Tough Stand Against 'Safe Space' Strawman
No, "safe spaces" aren't ruining education.
By Rick Seidel via Flickr
Just in time for classes, the University of Chicago just released its bold stand against “trigger warnings” and “safe spaces” in what’s ostensibly a defense of academic freedom, but really just boxes with the shadows of what dumb people imagine “trigger warnings” and “safe spaces” to be. These jeremiads make it sound like these concepts are some sort of “get out of jail free” card that completely shuts off all discussion as soon as anyone expresses discomfort. That would be a ridiculous rule — it’s just not what’s really happening in 99 percent of these cases.
Now, I’m not going to defend every conceivable anecdote of some “safe space gone wrong” out there, for much the same reason I don’t feel the need to defend the reality of heavier-than-air flight against the fact that JFK Jr. can’t read an altimeter. The point is that these specific practices, as actually lived in college classrooms, bear little resemblance to the anti-educational punching bag described in Chicago’s statement:
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Although the University greatly values civility, and although all members of the University community share in the responsibility for maintaining a climate of mutual respect, concerns about civility and mutual respect can never be used as a justification for closing off discussion of ideas, however offensive or disagreeable those ideas may be to some members of our community.
While Chicago is firm in defending its white, gentlemanly code of civility, it’s kind of missing the point that there may be instances where what passes the “politeness” test for discourse among, say, a bunch of dudes may not just offend, but passively exclude, women from the conversation. That’s all this “safe space” stuff is: a call to open one’s mind to the idea that something you’ve never bothered to think about might be hurtful to someone else. It’s not censorship, as much as it’s an invitation to expand an insular standard of “civility” to consider others. Do people really think that when these are invoked, the class picks up its materials and closes up shop? No, students are engaged in a discussion about why some statement or topic offends and violates standards of civility. Far from “closing off thinking and debate,” it expands the grounds of education to critically examine norms long taken for granted.
Take a well-worn complaint of the anti-safe space brigade: The disinvitation of Condi Rice to speak at Rutgers. Chicago even makes allusions to this story in its statement, when it breaks its rhetorical wrist patting itself on the back for letting a real-life Communist speak in the 1930s. Anyway, the uninspired drivel of an argument posits that students are shutting off debate when they keep people like Rice off campus. Apparently, the only way students can learn from a public figure with a lengthy record of public statements is by watching her read passages from “Oh, The Places You’ll Go!” for an hour.
Balderdash.
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More practical, educational debate went into the effort to convince the administration to take back the invitation than anyone was going to get out of a frigging commencement address. But still, we hear the lamentations from the peanut gallery about how not gleefully accepting sanitized fluff is paradoxically a sign of a poorer education. Look, it’s not like the school plans to invite Nazi party members to welcome incoming students. The school’s making judgments about the acceptable range of viewpoints all the time. It declared the limits of its “safe space” already. It just doesn’t want students — and in this specific example, diverse students — to engage in a debate about the breadth of the school’s judgment. Which is a shame, because questioning “why?” something is or isn’t considered neutral and inoffensive is a pretty valuable educational pursuit.
Take, indeed, the very title of this post. The term “Strawman” unnecessarily centers the debate around a male norm. When the “politically correct” folks say that’s a bad thing, some recalcitrant Trump acolytes will cry about “free speech” and urge folks to “not take things so seriously,” but what they’re actually saying is, “there’s an opportunity to learn someone else’s perspective here, but I’d rather shut off that debate.” If someone wanted to cry about the “violence” of seeing the word “Strawman” then, well, they’re a wuss (they’re also still, in the end, an 18-year-old still learning how to express this argument, it’s not the argument’s fault that they need a few years to figure it out). If they want to explain how it’s offensive and the playing field of civilized discourse should move beyond it, then that’s a fair point. And if the speaker digs in their heels and pretends that telling them to question their language choices is an attack on learning, then they’re an even bigger wuss than the crybaby.
In the end, the University of Chicago statement is going to generate a lot of social media buzz and warm the hearts of the right-wing press, but as a response to a problem that isn’t really there, it’s just intellectual masturbation dressed up in some stirring free speech buzzwords. They say they’re not going to take any guff from students when it comes to inviting speakers to campus. Cool. If the school feels that hosting a student protest is better than a disinvitation, more power to them.
Now if they invoke their expressly reserved “time, place, and manner” powers to quell those protests, then we’ll see exactly how far this deeply held commitment to free expression really goes. As those “safe spacers” suspect, it might only go as far as the university finds it convenient for its own sense of where the zone of “safe” should lie.
(The whole statement is available on the next page if you want to read it…)
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University of Chicago to freshmen: We do not support ‘trigger warnings,’ ‘safe spaces’ [Washington Times]
Joe Patrice is an editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.
