yo: refunct

Trigger Warnings, Safe Spaces and Free Speech, Too - The New York Times

Students, y’all. Student activists. What a great response to that ugly U of Chicago statement. The author really nails the institutional interest in construing trigger warnings as an intellectual threat: a tidy way of ignoring students’ specific concerns about access and transparency.

The administration wants to appear as an intellectual force beating back destabilizing waves of political correctness that have rocked college campuses. But the focus of student protests hasn’t been the lack of trigger warnings and safe spaces. Instead, many protesters want the university to evaluate how it invests its money, improve access for students with mental illnesses and disabilities, support low-income and first-generation students, and pay its employees fair wages. They have been pushing for more transparency in the school’s private police force, which has resisted making most of its policies public in the face of complaints. The university is also under federal investigation over its handling of sexual assault cases.

Yet, the administration has refused to meet with student groups who have asked to discuss these issues, and it has threatened to discipline students who staged a sit-in protest. The university even hired a provost who specializes in corporate crisis management and dealing with “activist pressure.” While the university accuses students of silencing opposing voices, it continues to insulate itself against difficult questions.

Sara Ahmed, “An Affinity of Hammers”

@ghoulchantsister this makes me think of what you have been posting recently