In Tuesday’s Washington Post, Brown University president Christina Paxson wrote an op-ed in favor of safe spaces and trigger warnings on campus, and argued that they have been mischaracterized as threatening to free speech and academic freedom.
“In the setting of private institutions, this is not a First Amendment issue,” she said. “Private colleges and universities could restrict the expression of ideas and beliefs within their campuses, if they chose to do so.”
However, she is incorrect.
In the 1992 case Havlik v. Johnson, the Supreme Court ruled the “basic legal relation between a student and private university or college is contractual in nature. The catalogues, bulletins, circulars, and regulations of the institution made available to the matriculant become a part of the contract.” Universities usually advertise themselves in a way, explicitly and inexplicitly, as open-minded to different ideas.
In her op-ed, Paxson also refuted the notion that safe spaces shield students from controversial topics. “Over the past few years, our students have addressed topics that make many people very uncomfortable indeed — racism, sexual assault, religious persecution,” she said.
However, those topics have been discussed while ostracizing those who don’t share the mainstream campus, leftist view. For example, racism has been discussed negligently and immaturely. At the University of Missouri, black student activists demanded more black faculty and staff, mandatory racial awareness and inclusion curriculum for all staff, faculty and students, among other demands. Instead of initiating a cohesive and tolerant conversation, these activists went with a tunnel-vision approach to protest, aside from a few campus incidents, and decried racism as if it plagued the school.
Additionally, Paxson said safe spaces are “where violence and harassment against the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer community would not be tolerated, and then extended yet again to mean places where students from marginalized groups can come together to feel comfortable discussing their experiences and just being themselves.”
Campuses should be virtually safe for everyone regardless of background. Unfortunately, on college campuses—and in life—there are jerks who aren’t accepting of certain people. While campus safety should be a top priority, spaces to coddle students of certain backgrounds does not provide a solution. If the real world doesn’t consist of “safe spaces,” an institution that is meant to prepare students for that chapter in their lives should not have these kind of designated areas. This realization echoes my mother’s greatest advice: You can’t control others. The only control you have is how you react.
Although Paxson acknowledged safe spaces shouldn’t consist of “rooms with Play-Doh and coloring books”—even though those kind of places exist on her campus—she said that safe spaces “allow students to find many opportunities through clubs and organizations to meet those who share similar backgrounds and interests—religious, political and otherwise.”
Today’s hype over safe spaces isn’t about meeting places for student clubs and organizations. It’s about the spaces used to conceal students who refuse to listen to opposing points of view, especially when echoed by a speaker like traditional feminist scholar Christina Hoff Sommers. Sommers spoke at Oberlin College last year despite vehement student opposition, resulting in 30 students and a therapy dog retreating to a safe place during and after her talk. Sommers visited Paxson’s institution in 2014, prompting students to flee to a “room equipped with cookies, coloring books, bubbles, Play-Doh, calming music, pillows, blankets and a video of frolicking puppies.”
As the New York Times’ Nicholas Kristof penned last May, “Universities should be a hubbub of the full range of political perspectives from A to Z, not just from V to Z. So maybe we progressives could take a brief break from attacking the other side and more broadly incorporate values that we supposedly cherish—like diversity—in our own dominions.”
At the end of the day, universities are supposed to prepare students for life after college, which doesn’t usually consist of spaces to protect them from hearing viewpoints which may make them feel uncomfortable or “triggered.” In the real world, seeing a social worker or psychiatrist can help someone to overcome trauma or other problems. Those kinds of healthcare and well-being professionals do exist on college campuses.
Altogether, a safe space is unsafe for an institution that prides itself on exploring and learning different viewpoints, even if they’re controversial.
