College takes the stand against trigger warnings

[Langue_doc]

From the Washinton Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/04/29/university-campus-free-speech-censorship-fight/

Opinion  These universities are pushing back on censorious students. Finally.
By the Editorial Board
April 29, 2023 at 7:00 a.m. EDT

In March, a Cornell University sophomore and member of the undergraduate student assembly saw a friend become visibly disturbed while reading "The Surrendered," a Chang-rae Lee novel with a graphic rape scene. So she spearheaded a resolution that "implores all instructors to provide content warnings on the syllabus for any traumatic content that may be discussed."

On the surface, this story has all the trappings of a wider phenomenon increasingly prevalent on American university campuses: the curtailing of academic inquiry, and sometimes even free speech, for the protection of perceived student "sensitivities" — invisible boundaries whose contours are never quite clear but almost always couched as barriers against "harm." What happened next is cause for celebration: The Cornell administration immediately struck down this resolution, a welcome reminder that academic institutions have the power to defend their fundamental values — and are willing to use it.

"We cannot accept this resolution as the actions it recommends would infringe on our core commitment to academic freedom and freedom of inquiry, and are at odds with the goals of a Cornell education," wrote Cornell's president, Martha E. Pollack, and its provost, Michael I. Kotlikoff, in a letter rejecting the student assembly's plea for trigger warnings. Although they did note, understandably, that "in some cases faculty may wish to provide notice," an outright trigger warning requirement, they noted, "would have a chilling effect on faculty, who would naturally fear censure lest they bring a discussion spontaneously into new and challenging territory, or fail to accurately anticipate students' reaction to a topic or idea."

Across the country, a growing number of administrations and faculties at universities both private and public alike are beginning to do the same, waking up to the realization that academic freedom needs to be protected, and that student outrage on social media should not dictate university policy.

Earlier this month, Neeli Bendapudi, the president of Penn State, released a recorded statement defending her university's embrace of controversial speakers. The Supreme Court, she reminded her viewers, has long held that public universities such as Penn State are bound by the First Amendment. But she also reiterated a moral reason to continue welcoming diverse, and even offensive, opinions: "For centuries, higher education has fought against censorship and for the principle that the best way to combat speech is with more speech."

A similar defense is being waged at private institutions. At Harvard University, a group of more than 50 faculty members last month established the Council on Academic Freedom, a group "devoted to free inquiry, intellectual diversity, and civil discourse." Vanderbilt University, likewise, announced last month that it would become the U.S. foothold for the Future of Free Speech project, an initiative of the Danish think tank Justitia. "For a university to do its work, faculty and students must have maximum freedom to share their ideas, assert their opinions, and challenge conventional wisdom — and one another," said Vanderbilt Chancellor Daniel Diermeier in a statement.

It's true, of course, that the social justice movement in general, spurred in part by the brutal killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in the summer of 2020, has brought a much-needed change in perspective to the American academy, inspiring faculties to expand course offerings and hiring committees to seek out scholars from diverse backgrounds. But those changes, all necessary efforts to make more students feel welcome on campuses, have sometimes gone hand in hand with tacit limits on what can be said, questioned or even written in university settings.

According to "The Academic Mind in 2022: What Faculty Think About Free Expression and Academic Freedom on Campus," a national survey of approximately 1,500 faculty members at four-year colleges and universities conducted by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a free speech advocacy group, one third of those polled feel they cannot express their opinions based on potential reaction from other members of their university communities — while more than half expressed concern about being fired because of someone misunderstanding a comment.

A turning point of sorts seems to have come in March, when Jenny Martinez, the dean of Stanford Law School, courageously doubled down on defending her decision to apologize to Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan, a Trump appointee with an admittedly abysmal record who had come to Palo Alto only to be heckled nonstop by law students.

"Some students might feel that some points should not be up for argument and therefore that they should not bear the responsibility of arguing them," she wrote in a 10-page letter. But saying that certain points are somehow beyond the pale of acceptable argumentation "is incompatible with the training that must be delivered in a law school."

Thankfully, trigger warnings and other such measures are not always successful in taking root. But, at least in certain universities, they've triggered long-overdue defenses of unimpeded academic inquiry. For far too long, administrators and professors have been silent. Not anymore.

[ciao_yall]

I'm glad about the Cornell decision and the Harvard group, and especially pleased that Jeannie Suk Gerson is involved in the Harvard initiative. She had an excellent New Yorker piece on trigger warnings.not long ago, and I'm always relieved when people who aren't right wing demonstrate that they care about freedom of expression and academic freedom and offer thoughtful critiques. I really wish this were not framed as a left v. right issue, as it so often seems to be.

When was the last time you heard someone on the right complaining about the utterance of a particular word, rather than the misuse of it? That's pretty much exclusive to the left at this point in history. (Religious people on the right might complain about profanity, but that is about the misuse of language. Objections about obscenity are that certain language is vulgar, not that people will be harmed by merely hearing it used.)

You mean when the right is totally chill when people talk about... critical race theory, slavery, gender identity, sexuality, Black lives, police violence....

I haven't heard anyone claim that hearing someone say "Black Lives Matter" makes them feel like they don't exist, or that they're going to have to leave the room if someone says it or a poster on the wall proclaims it.

They just all wear matching t-shirts and storm school board meetings.

[Hibush]

The WaPo editorial puts a lot of emphasis on the trigger warning aspect of the Cornell decision. I suspect that at Cornell and its peers, the idea that the student council can impose requirements on faculty is just not going to go anywhere. The prinicple at such schools is that faculty have the autonomy to teach how they see fit, and woe to anyone who tries to violate the principle.

[marshwiggle]

I'm glad about the Cornell decision and the Harvard group, and especially pleased that Jeannie Suk Gerson is involved in the Harvard initiative. She had an excellent New Yorker piece on trigger warnings.not long ago, and I'm always relieved when people who aren't right wing demonstrate that they care about freedom of expression and academic freedom and offer thoughtful critiques. I really wish this were not framed as a left v. right issue, as it so often seems to be.

When was the last time you heard someone on the right complaining about the utterance of a particular word, rather than the misuse of it? That's pretty much exclusive to the left at this point in history. (Religious people on the right might complain about profanity, but that is about the misuse of language. Objections about obscenity are that certain language is vulgar, not that people will be harmed by merely hearing it used.)

You mean when the right is totally chill when people talk about... critical race theory, slavery, gender identity, sexuality, Black lives, police violence....

I haven't heard anyone claim that hearing someone say "Black Lives Matter" makes them feel like they don't exist, or that they're going to have to leave the room if someone says it or a poster on the wall proclaims it.

They just all wear matching t-shirts and storm school board meetings.

If they just quietly stand or sit there like other any members of the public, they're welcome to. If they shout speakers down , pull fire alarms, and block the entrances so people can't attend, then they should be ejected and/or arrested.

Disagreeing is fine; how people express it it the issue, and the same rules should apply to every person, group, or point of view in that regard.

[Wahoo Redux]

I'm glad about the Cornell decision and the Harvard group, and especially pleased that Jeannie Suk Gerson is involved in the Harvard initiative. She had an excellent New Yorker piece on trigger warnings.not long ago, and I'm always relieved when people who aren't right wing demonstrate that they care about freedom of expression and academic freedom and offer thoughtful critiques. I really wish this were not framed as a left v. right issue, as it so often seems to be.

When was the last time you heard someone on the right complaining about the utterance of a particular word, rather than the misuse of it? That's pretty much exclusive to the left at this point in history. (Religious people on the right might complain about profanity, but that is about the misuse of language. Objections about obscenity are that certain language is vulgar, not that people will be harmed by merely hearing it used.)

You mean when the right is totally chill when people talk about... critical race theory, slavery, gender identity, sexuality, Black lives, police violence....

I haven't heard anyone claim that hearing someone say "Black Lives Matter" makes them feel like they don't exist, or that they're going to have to leave the room if someone says it or a poster on the wall proclaims it.

They just all wear matching t-shirts and storm school board meetings.

If they just quietly stand or sit there like other any members of the public, they're welcome to. If they shout speakers down , pull fire alarms, and block the entrances so people can't attend, then they should be ejected and/or arrested.

Disagreeing is fine; how people express it it the issue, and the same rules should apply to every person, group, or point of view in that regard.

Playing the rational rightwing game will not work in context of word usage, censorship, or ideology, Marshman, particularly in the age of DeSantis and Tucker Carlson.

[ciao_yall]

I'm glad about the Cornell decision and the Harvard group, and especially pleased that Jeannie Suk Gerson is involved in the Harvard initiative. She had an excellent New Yorker piece on trigger warnings.not long ago, and I'm always relieved when people who aren't right wing demonstrate that they care about freedom of expression and academic freedom and offer thoughtful critiques. I really wish this were not framed as a left v. right issue, as it so often seems to be.

When was the last time you heard someone on the right complaining about the utterance of a particular word, rather than the misuse of it? That's pretty much exclusive to the left at this point in history. (Religious people on the right might complain about profanity, but that is about the misuse of language. Objections about obscenity are that certain language is vulgar, not that people will be harmed by merely hearing it used.)

You mean when the right is totally chill when people talk about... critical race theory, slavery, gender identity, sexuality, Black lives, police violence....

I haven't heard anyone claim that hearing someone say "Black Lives Matter" makes them feel like they don't exist, or that they're going to have to leave the room if someone says it or a poster on the wall proclaims it.

They just all wear matching t-shirts and storm school board meetings.

If they just quietly stand or sit there like other any members of the public, they're welcome to. If they shout speakers down , pull fire alarms, and block the entrances so people can't attend, then they should be ejected and/or arrested.

Disagreeing is fine; how people express it it the issue, and the same rules should apply to every person, group, or point of view in that regard.

Playing the rational rightwing game will not work in context of word usage, censorship, or ideology, Marshman, particularly in the age of DeSantis and Tucker Carlson.

And who paid for those t-shirts? And why?

[Caracal]

There are clearly times when a warning is appropriate, like showing graphic content. (Or not even graphic-- I give a warning before the part of a video that includes a cataract surgery, just because I don't want anyone fainting who has a vasovagal phobic response. No one leaves, I just tell them when to look away for a moment if they are sensitive).

However, the research pretty clearly shows that trigger warnings before covering difficult topics do not reduce student distress and in fact sometimes increase anticipatory distress. Other research has found that content warnings on media actually increases viewing due to curiosity.

They also can do harm if used in situations that really don't call for them. For example, I strongly object to issuing a trigger warning before discussing mental health topics, because it contributes to stigma around openly discussing mental health. Instead, I start off by providing resources and encouraging them to add them to their phones, for themselves or someone they know who may need them. Everything I say is aimed at normalizing rather than problematizing discussing mental health and seeking help when needed.

That's a good point. I think it applies, in a somewhat different way, to discussing all kinds of upsetting topics. My history classes are chockfull of upsetting stuff, if I stopped every time I mentioned some episode of racial or sexual violence and gave a trigger warning, I would be implying that these things are rare and can be set apart from the rest of the course. Everything else is just normal history and every once in a while there's something upsetting and after we finish that, we can get back to talking about tariffs.

It is worth being aware that we choose the readings and the topics and you don't want to spring things on students. I try to give students a little context for upcoming readings anyway in class. Usually just a description of what the reading is will be perfectly sufficient without the need for any sort of explicit trigger warning. "It's a pretty detailed and graphic account of a massacre" gives everyone an idea of what to expect. If there's some particular passage, that's especially disturbing, I try to flag it in the context of thinking about what's going on with it rather than a "trigger warning."

[history_grrrl]

That's a good point. I think it applies, in a somewhat different way, to discussing all kinds of upsetting topics. My history classes are chockfull of upsetting stuff, if I stopped every time I mentioned some episode of racial or sexual violence and gave a trigger warning, I would be implying that these things are rare and can be set apart from the rest of the course. Everything else is just normal history and every once in a while there's something upsetting and after we finish that, we can get back to talking about tariffs.

Right there with you. My own thinking is that I'd be giving warnings every five minutes. And how do I decide what gets a trigger? Some things are perhaps "obvious," but there's plenty of other exploitation and ill treatment that's upsetting to *somebody*. Hell, I can barely stand to read of this stuff myself.

[Puget]

There are clearly times when a warning is appropriate, like showing graphic content. (Or not even graphic-- I give a warning before the part of a video that includes a cataract surgery, just because I don't want anyone fainting who has a vasovagal phobic response. No one leaves, I just tell them when to look away for a moment if they are sensitive).

However, the research pretty clearly shows that trigger warnings before covering difficult topics do not reduce student distress and in fact sometimes increase anticipatory distress. Other research has found that content warnings on media actually increases viewing due to curiosity.

They also can do harm if used in situations that really don't call for them. For example, I strongly object to issuing a trigger warning before discussing mental health topics, because it contributes to stigma around openly discussing mental health. Instead, I start off by providing resources and encouraging them to add them to their phones, for themselves or someone they know who may need them. Everything I say is aimed at normalizing rather than problematizing discussing mental health and seeking help when needed.

That's a good point. I think it applies, in a somewhat different way, to discussing all kinds of upsetting topics. My history classes are chockfull of upsetting stuff, if I stopped every time I mentioned some episode of racial or sexual violence and gave a trigger warning, I would be implying that these things are rare and can be set apart from the rest of the course. Everything else is just normal history and every once in a while there's something upsetting and after we finish that, we can get back to talking about tariffs.

It is worth being aware that we choose the readings and the topics and you don't want to spring things on students. I try to give students a little context for upcoming readings anyway in class. Usually just a description of what the reading is will be perfectly sufficient without the need for any sort of explicit trigger warning. "It's a pretty detailed and graphic account of a massacre" gives everyone an idea of what to expect. If there's some particular passage, that's especially disturbing, I try to flag it in the context of thinking about what's going on with it rather than a "trigger warning."

This seems like the right approach to me-- acknowledge that material is upsetting and that that's the normal human response, not a "trigger" that should be avoided. Everyone should be disturbed and upset by much of history. 

[kaysixteen]

Why should elite schools like Cornell be able to take a harder (and justifiably so) line on this sort of nonsense than various nonelite places?

[Hibush]

Why should elite schools like Cornell be able to take a harder (and justifiably so) line on this sort of nonsense than various nonelite places?

Faculty who take autonomy very seriously. At nonelites, I think teaching faculty fear they are replaceable and will accept top-down edicts about course content, grading standards, honor violations, and accommodating student whims. If faculty are replaceable and replaced, that system is reinforced. And faculty don't fight if they feel the can be let go. The other model is to have an agreement that if a student wants to major in basketweaving, the faculty will make the detailed decisions that provide the best basketweaving education. That model isn't exclusive to elites by a long shot.

Students who, in principle, want to be challenged intellectually. (Some seek the challenge of being the biggest snowflake ;-) If a lot of the students find trigger warnings patronizing and distractiing, they won't welcome them.

[marshwiggle]

Why should elite schools like Cornell be able to take a harder (and justifiably so) line on this sort of nonsense than various nonelite places?

Faculty who take autonomy very seriously. At nonelites, I think teaching faculty fear they are replaceable and will accept top-down edicts about course content, grading standards, honor violations, and accommodating student whims. If faculty are replaceable and replaced, that system is reinforced. And faculty don't fight if they feel the can be let go. The other model is to have an agreement that if a student wants to major in basketweaving, the faculty will make the detailed decisions that provide the best basketweaving education. That model isn't exclusive to elites by a long shot.

Students who, in principle, want to be challenged intellectually. (Some seek the challenge of being the biggest snowflake ;-) If a lot of the students find trigger warnings patronizing and distractiing, they won't welcome them.

That could simplify admissions a lot, if applicants were asked if they wanted to go to a school where the actions and wishes of students would direct institutional policy, or if they wanted to go to a place where students were expected to follow institution's rules and regulations for the duration of their time there? Getting all of the snowflakes into their own institutions would make everyone's lives at the other places more pleasant.

Similar to this:

"My grandfather once told me that there were two kinds of people; those who do the work and those who take the credit. He told me to try to be in the first group; there was much less competition."
― Indira Gandhi

[Caracal]

There are clearly times when a warning is appropriate, like showing graphic content. (Or not even graphic-- I give a warning before the part of a video that includes a cataract surgery, just because I don't want anyone fainting who has a vasovagal phobic response. No one leaves, I just tell them when to look away for a moment if they are sensitive).

However, the research pretty clearly shows that trigger warnings before covering difficult topics do not reduce student distress and in fact sometimes increase anticipatory distress. Other research has found that content warnings on media actually increases viewing due to curiosity.

They also can do harm if used in situations that really don't call for them. For example, I strongly object to issuing a trigger warning before discussing mental health topics, because it contributes to stigma around openly discussing mental health. Instead, I start off by providing resources and encouraging them to add them to their phones, for themselves or someone they know who may need them. Everything I say is aimed at normalizing rather than problematizing discussing mental health and seeking help when needed.

That's a good point. I think it applies, in a somewhat different way, to discussing all kinds of upsetting topics. My history classes are chockfull of upsetting stuff, if I stopped every time I mentioned some episode of racial or sexual violence and gave a trigger warning, I would be implying that these things are rare and can be set apart from the rest of the course. Everything else is just normal history and every once in a while there's something upsetting and after we finish that, we can get back to talking about tariffs.

It is worth being aware that we choose the readings and the topics and you don't want to spring things on students. I try to give students a little context for upcoming readings anyway in class. Usually just a description of what the reading is will be perfectly sufficient without the need for any sort of explicit trigger warning. "It's a pretty detailed and graphic account of a massacre" gives everyone an idea of what to expect. If there's some particular passage, that's especially disturbing, I try to flag it in the context of thinking about what's going on with it rather than a "trigger warning."

This seems like the right approach to me-- acknowledge that material is upsetting and that that's the normal human response, not a "trigger" that should be avoided. Everyone should be disturbed and upset by much of history.

If a student is really concerned that something might be too upsetting for them to read or view, I don't have any kind of principled objection to that. I don't think it's required that we always immerse ourselves in things we find disturbing. I never wanted to take courses on the Holocaust in college because it's just something that feels personal and deeply disturbing to me. I didn't want to immerse myself in it for a semester. Obviously, there's an easy solution there-take a different course-but if it's just a single reading or topic and someone would just like to pass on it, that's something I'm willing to work with.

[kaysixteen]

Hmmm... I get that there are different institutional realities at nonelite schools vs the Ivies of the world, but I am wondering, does anyone know what the relative percentage of tt faculty who actually obtain tenure at the Cornells of the world is, vs. the percentage at places like Northeast State Tech?  IOW, many such faculty at the big boys may well think that they would have a real reason to dummy up and get with the program... esp because, well, students at such places are probably much more likely to come up with trigger warning proposals such as that developed by the Cornell student council, as opposed to those at NE St Tech.

[Caracal]

esp because, well, students at such places are probably much more likely to come up with trigger warning proposals such as that developed by the Cornell student council, as opposed to those at NE St Tech.

This is very true. I've never had anybody demand or ask for trigger warnings. Once or twice I've had a student ask to be excused from a reading or class session because they found the topic personally disturbing for a particular reason. Once a student very politely made a reasonable case to me that a particular reading was potentially upsetting in a way that outweighed its value. That's it.