The dean of undergraduate students at the University of Chicago has sent a very odd letter to the class of 2020-one that seems more created to strike a blow in the culture wars than to edify incoming freshmen.
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A letter issued to University of Chicago students informing freshmen that the school doesn’t support trigger warnings or safe spaces has made newspapers all over the country. In a similar vein, what does it mean to say the university doesn’t “condone intellectual “safe spaces”? Dean Ellison’s letter comes on the heels of the Aug 23 National Labor Relations Board ruling that student assistants at private universities are employees, giving graduate students on the University of Chicago campus the right to organize a union, which has already prompted a swift negative response from the university; as well as in the midst of unpopular budget cuts and layoffs that Chicago Student Action is now fighting alongside graduate students, staff, and faculty members.
Ellison told incoming freshmen the university expects its students to debate and disagree, even if “at times this may challenge you and even cause discomfort”.
A letter sent to the class of 2020 from the university’s dean of students, John Ellison, has been making waves online for its blunt message on campus environment.
The letter comes in the wake of DePaul University’s rejection of hosting conservative writer and speaker Ben Shapiro, which came on the heels of controversial speaker and blogger Milo Yiannopoulos’s event interrupted and shut down by protesters on DePaul’s campus.
According to the ideology which opposes free speech on college campuses, some speech constitutes a “microaggression” against people of other races, sexes, religions, et cetera.
In our times, intolerance for free expression usually is seen as more of a problem on the left, at least on college campuses.
“Coming out against trigger warnings in the name of “academic freedom” does suggest a misunderstanding of the term”, he said.
Of course, the ideas of different members of the University community will often and quite naturally conflict.
As one of those articles declared, “Something odd is happening at America’s colleges and universities”.
While the controversial move was a breath of fresh air for some, the exclusion of student safes spaces is still a tough sell for others.
Harris welcomed the letter, and said she hoped other universities would follow and take a strong stand to uphold academic freedom. Good for the University of Chicago for bucking the ridiculous trend. It goes on to explain the university’s commitment to freedom of expression and inquiry. We are doing an incredible disservice to students by treating them as emotionally fragile children- they are adults, after all- who must be protected from the slightest bit of controversy.
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Simone Brandford-Altsher, who works with the Phoenix Survivors Alliance on campus, an organization that helps students that have experienced sexual violence, said the university already has trigger warnings on the section of its website about sexual misconduct.
