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U Chicago Dean Gives Trigger Warning In Letter Denouncing Trigger Warnings

This article is more than 7 years old.

The ‘trigger warning,’ a statement or warning that upcoming content may contain material that could trigger escape panic or traumatic recollections in susceptible consumers, has drawn a lot of flak. In the university setting, people who dismiss the importance of considering others’ feelings blow off the idea of using trigger warnings, calling it “coddling.” Their fear, it seems, is that giving students a heads up about material that might detail rape, murder, suicide, torture, child molestation or other horrific human activity is too protective and doesn’t prepare students sufficiently for the real world where people rape, murder and torture and so on.

What that argument elides, first and foremost, is that such warnings are primarily for students who have, in fact, life experience with exactly such things already. If you’ve been raped or witnessed a murder or lost a loved one to suicide, you might want to have a little warning that your next three hours of classroom instruction will revolve around rape or murder or suicide. You might want maybe a little time to gird your loins so that you don’t have your breath taken away and your mind melted when memories of your own experiences flood your brain while those around you proceed blithely onward, with no idea what it’s like except for the abstract discussions they’re having about it.

The argument against such warnings also willfully or otherwise misunderstands their purpose. These statements at the top of a syllabus or the beginning of a class aren’t intended to give students an “out.” They are the way thoughtful people signal that something coming up might be deeply disturbing and give their listeners a minute to prepare mentally, emotionally and sometimes physically for it, and they should be framed that way. It's the classroom equivalent of those "this content may be disturbing for some viewers" warnings that come up with just about every forensics TV show, yet no one does epic think pieces on those. (Forbes staffer Alex Knapp suggests we just use "content advisory" instead of 'trigger warning' and perhaps lose some of the baggage.)

The trigger-warning-in-universities issue came to the fore yet again when University of Chicago Dean of Students John "Jay" Ellison sent out a ‘welcome’ letter to incoming students. In welcoming these fledgling adult minds, Ellison gave a sort of trigger warning of his own: He begins by waving a hand at common courtesy, saying that “civility and mutual respect are vital to all of us,” without stating that it’s a university commitment, and then goes on to provide his accidental trigger warning about rigorous debate and discussion, writing:

At times, this may challenge you or even cause you discomfort.

That, my friends, is what a trigger warning is. It gives people a heads up that something uncomfortable to them may be on the horizon. It gives them time to prepare. But Ellison, despite using a trigger warning himself, doesn’t seem to have much appreciation for them otherwise:

Our commitment to academic freedom means that we do not support so-called 'trigger warnings,' we do not cancel invited speakers because their topics might prove controversial, and we do not condone the creation of intellectual 'safe spaces' where individuals can retreat from ideas and perspectives at odds with their own

Let’s unpack that a bit. The university, through the vessel that is John Ellison, “does not support so-called ‘trigger warnings.’" The letter itself is one, so the university does, in fact, use them whether it supports them or not. In addition, this official communication from the university stating that it will not offer this minimal accommodation to students steps all over what may be right by law and common decency for students who have mental health-related disabilities. Someone in legal at UoC might want to look into that.

Much has been made about articles claiming that trigger warnings don’t help people who have, for example, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), in particular an essay by Jonathan Chait bemoaning their use. But the evidence that these arguments rely on is encapsulated in a statement from the Institute of Medicine regarding PTSD and combat veterans. Chait claimed that:

... an analysis by the Institute of Medicine has found that the best approach is controlled exposure to it (trauma), and experts say avoidance can reinforce suffering.

A trigger warning achieves exactly that: Controlled—instead of surprise—exposure to triggers. In other words, using these warnings is in keeping with the evidence. Oh, also? It’s just everyday thoughtfulness, a way to say, “We’re about to talk about something shocking, possibly traumatic even to read about, even if you haven’t experienced it yourself, so fair warning.” Horrible, squishy, soft, coddling social justice warrior language, I know, but there it is.

Ellison and others before him—and no doubt, many who will comment on this article—argue that giving these warnings is somehow counter to the exercise of academic freedom. The opposite is true: The mentally and emotionally prepared student will be far more able to engage in and exercise academic freedom than a student who has been shocked out of rational capacity.

The dean also references “safe spaces” in his ‘welcome’ letter, saying that the school does not “condone” their creation. That’s an odd thing to say, given that the university has a SafeSpace program. As with trigger warnings, Ellison seems to have a less than firm grasp of the concept, or else he’s not bothered to look beyond others’ misinterpretations of these terms.

A safe space isn’t some place where people huddle together like a bunch of musk oxen keeping out a pack of wolves. It’s a place where those who have a shared culture or ethnicity or background can be together without an expectation that others will intrude or require political attention from them. Most college campuses and environs are packed with these spaces, from frat houses to LBGQT gathering spots (as at the University of Chicago) to culturally sheltered areas for students of specific faiths. These are places to be a member of that culture without non-members having a justifiable expectation that you’ll engage with them. Pretty radical, I know, since the idea’s been around for only, oh, millennia.

Indeed, just as Ellison included a trigger warning in his own letter discounting trigger warnings, he also uses his letter to describe a university safe space:

The members of our community must have the freedom to espouse and explore a wide range of ideas.

That is the very definition of a safe space—a community that has a commitment to a common culture, goal or cause, a place where the pressures or oppressions or notions of an outside world don’t intrude so that people can express themselves freely.

Ellison clearly wants to cast trigger warnings and safe spaces as convenient excuses to avoid learning or intellectual challenge or ‘discomfort.’ His perspective is a stereotype of someone who stereotypes everyone else: a person who has always owned his space and the world around him, always walked comfortably. It’s too bad that he can’t see how important his experience is for others to have, as well.

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