Why UChicago is Wrong About “Safe Spaces” and “Trigger Warnings”

Today, it was announced that the University of Chicago sent letters to incoming freshmen that it does not support “safe spaces” or “trigger warnings” as they are an impediment to intellectual freedom.

Naturally, the conservative blogosphere is blowing up with support and admiration with scarcely an inkling of what this really means because they all seem to be their own special brand of keyboard warriors who rally around the mere mention of certain buzzwords, nuance be damned.

I would be lying if I said we don’t need a better conversation on “safe spaces” — supposed physical spaces that promote healing from trauma of all types — and “trigger warnings” — basically, a heads up that certain material or discussions could trigger students who have experienced said trauma.

As a rape survivor and noncisgender individual, I greatly appreciate trigger warnings because they allow me to avoid compromising public spaces, both for myself and others. Anyone who has had a panic attack due to previous trauma can testify to the embarrassment one feels when this occurs. If I know there’s a significant chance I’ll have a panic attack at a social function of any kind, more often than not, I don’t attend. If I do attend, I make sure to carry anti-anxiety medication with me. I am not saying this should be required of anyone else, but at my point in healing, it’s what’s required of me.

The last thing I want to do is ruin the mood for everyone else at said function. I would wager that any person with triggers, regardless of trauma, feels this way. The experience of negotiating public spaces with mental health illnesses is a constant calibration of your needs versus that of the community.

In fact, you probably support “trigger warnings” and “safe spaces” without knowing it. When you share that warning on July Fourth about making military veterans uncomfortable with fireworks, you’re doing both. When we implicitly avoid using foul language, raising our voice, or talking about sex in front of children, we are creating a “safe space” for them. A person who has experienced the death of a loved one and returns to work will, more often than not, be embraced by their coworkers and certain discussions — especially if they are likely to remind the individual of that death — are avoided.

There are so many examples of both that are accepted by the vast majority of society, not the least of which are among the most “conservative” corners of America.

Not desecrating the flag? Both an implicit trigger warning and a safe space.

“Support the Troops” bumperstickers? An implicit indication of both.

Any outward expression of Judeo-Christian values, whether it be the phrase “In God We Trust” or placing one’s hand on the Bible or the vast majority of benedictions being from Christian clergy — all of these are examples of ensuring that certain people are comfortable at the expense of others.

As a military veteran and a Christian, these all make me more comfortable, but I can recognize that doesn’t make them right or comfortable for others.

Were we to remove “In God We Trust” from currency or stop the practice of giving benedictions in public spaces or burn the flag, there would be an outcry from many Americans who have spent this morning calling victims of rape, racism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, etc. “pussies”, “typical Millennials”, “PC babies”, and a host of other wonderful insults.

It seems things that are “politically correct nonsense” are only the things that aren’t sacred to conservatives, things that don’t upset them, things that don’t “trigger” them. All of those things are perfectly appropriate to mock.

It is clear that there’s a severe lack of intellectual honesty on this topic from conservatives, and that’s unfortunate because in many ways, they’re right.

We DO need to talk about how the concepts of “safe spaces” and “trigger warnings” have been taken advantage of on some occasions and why there need to be areas — and many of them — that promote no-holds-barred intellectual discussions that require a certain discomfort on the part of participants.

A college education is the greatest supervised intellectual discomfort most of us will receive, and thank goodness for that. We need to be challenged. It is through uncomfortable academic discourse that great ideas have been revealed, not the least of which relate to race, gender, and sexuality.

At the same time, not all students have the same barriers upon entering college. Sometimes, they are physical: the student who, as late as 27 years ago before the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, would have had to fight for wheelchair access at a time when they were told by some to suck it up. More often now, they are psychological: a student wrestling with PTSD or depression or bipolar disorder or any number of mental illnesses who is forced to hold themselves accountable to the needs of the community.

In America, we have a habit of fetishizing mental illness in film and television when it’s convenient for us, to make us feel warm and fuzzy, and mocking it when it’s inconvenient, dismissing those with mental illness as “weak” and “insubstantial” and “troublemakers”. We tend to relate to the hero with mental illness — an experience many of us haven’t even had — instead of the callous or insensitive villains who serve as a barrier to the hero, a role many of us embody with our callous and insensitive take on mental health.

I am disappointed by the University of Chicago because instead of finding common ground and working on a policy that makes sense — preserving intellectual freedom while making the classroom accessible for all persons — they have chosen to mark themselves as the diametric opposite of those who have taken advantage of “trigger warnings” and “safe spaces”.

Neither approach makes sense, but I would have expected more of UChicago, an institution that supposedly transcends the petty for something more meaningful and enduring on its own merit.

For now, I would encourage those who mock “safe spaces” and “trigger warnings” to ask others about them. Why do they need them? Why are they important? I feel that an honest discussion on this will surprise all involved and lead to a greater understanding.