Thursday, September 1, 2016

Trigger Warnings and Safe Spaces at the University of Chicago

A number of people have asked me, knowing that I'm a Chicago grad, what I thought about the letter that Dean Ellison wrote to this year's incoming freshman class.

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, you can read more here, here, here, here, and here.

I found the letter itself, and the discussions and observations that I read, fascinating.

I particularly recommend the long comment threads on John Scalzi's essay.

And I'm quite pleased that the discussion is occurring, and that the University of Chicago wants to be part of the discussion.

However, I don't have anything to add.

I've spend my entire life cocooned in white male privilege; I have absolutely none of the perspective that drives people to confront issues like this, this, this, this, or this.

So good on the U of C for encouraging and continuing the discussion.

And good on the participants for joining it.

I remember my times on campus as full of passionate discussion of all sorts of topics (even if the subjects I was generally studying were far less controversial than these).

And I'm tremendously glad that tradition continues.

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