{"id":112,"date":"2017-05-16T15:42:43","date_gmt":"2017-05-16T15:42:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/catherinedenial.org\/blog\/?p=112"},"modified":"2017-05-16T15:42:43","modified_gmt":"2017-05-16T15:42:43","slug":"on-safe-spaces","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/catherinedenial.org\/blog\/uncategorized\/on-safe-spaces\/","title":{"rendered":"On Safe Spaces"},"content":{"rendered":"

Another day, another op-ed piece about students who live in \u201csafe spaces\u201d being utterly unprepared for The Real World.\u00a0 This time the opinion comes from Bret Stephens, a columnist for the New York Times, who published the May 14, 2017 commencement speech he gave to the students at Hampden-Sydney College.\u00a0 \u201cSafe spaces, physical and intellectual, are for children,\u201d writes Stephens. \u201cYou are grown-ups now. If your diplomas mean anything, it\u2019s that it is time you leave those spaces behind forever.\u201d\u00a0 Safe spaces are, in Stephen\u2019s opinion, places where dissent is stifled.\u00a0 \u201cAfter all, if a college or university should accept the principle of a \u201csafe space\u201d in a single designated room, why should that same principle not extend to the classroom, the lecture hall, dormitories, college newspapers, chat rooms, social media and so on?\u00a0 If we want to accommodate the sensitivities of our fellow students, shouldn\u2019t that accommodation extend not only to what we say around them, but also to what we say anywhere \u2014 or what we allow<\/em> to be said anywhere?\u00a0 And if it is not O.K. to say<\/em> certain things, anywhere, should we even think them?\u201d<\/p>\n

Stephens presumes that college is a \u201csafe space\u201d for everyone but conservative students; that other students are protected from speech and actions that represent profoundly different perspectives lest those ideas \u201churt people\u2019s feelings or trigger their anxieties.\u201d<\/p>\n

I can only speak for my own college, but nothing could be further from the truth.<\/p>\n

My students are deeply embedded in The Real World.\u00a0 Let\u2019s talk about the student who sends part of their student loan home to their family, because their family relies on that income to hold their world together.\u00a0 College is not a place where they can suspend their responsibilities and spend money only on books. Let\u2019s talk about the student who is sexually assaulted. They are not protected from the violence of that act because they\u2019re on a college campus.\u00a0 Let\u2019s talk about the student who weathers daily racist insults, and whose fellow students fly a confederate flag in their dorm-room window.\u00a0 College is not a place where they are insulated from the inequitable racial power dynamics of American society.\u00a0 Let\u2019s talk about the trans student who isn\u2019t accepted for who they are. They are not assured, because they are students, that they will be believed about their own gender identity, much less shielded from hateful speech and action.<\/p>\n

We can strive to make our campuses inclusive spaces, to recognize the harms perpetuated by society upon our students, faculty, and staff.\u00a0 But we cannot magically hold off the societal forces that seek to diminish the worth of the people around us.\u00a0 College is only magical, conflict-free space for a tiny minority of students \u2013 students who are overwhelmingly protected by wealth and whiteness. For everyone else, college presents an environment that mirrors the problems, inequalities, and challenges of the world at large.<\/p>\n

It is worth pointing out that there is a vast difference between pain and oppression which Stephens elides when he talks about \u201csafe space\u201d.\u00a0 The students I know who most need space to talk with like-minded people, or people who share a similar position to them in the world, are students who are oppressed by the structures of our society, whose humanity is denied on the basis of race, class, sex, gender, religion, and disability every day.\u00a0 The people who oppose them are not merely engaged in a thought exercise, they are actively engaged in discriminating against them, and are aided and abetted by structures and institutions that back up their position.\u00a0 That\u2019s a very different thing from being a white, male, conservative who is pained because others don\u2019t want to hear their voice.<\/p>\n

Safe spaces, as implemented on our campus, are informal places where people who share an identity can speak freely, without concern for moderating their language or holding back their thoughts because of others who do not share their experiences.\u00a0\u00a0 This is a feature not only of college campuses, but of the whole of our society \u2013 think of male-only golf courses; women\u2019s book clubs; networking events within a given industry; Alcoholics Anonymous.\u00a0 The list is as varied as we are. \u00a0So why should students be denied respite from the world in which they live less<\/em> than everyone else?<\/p>\n

In sum \u2013 safe spaces are not limited to college campuses, and college campuses are not places where students can live a coddled life, protected from the opinions and actions of others.\u00a0 To argue as much is to make assumptions about who\u2019s in college, their life experiences, and the source of solutions to intractable social problems in the United States.<\/p>\n

My students lives are real, their experiences are real, and the world is unwelcoming and dangerous for way too many of them.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Another day, another op-ed piece about students who live in \u201csafe spaces\u201d being utterly unprepared for The Real World.\u00a0 This time the opinion comes from Bret Stephens, a columnist for the New York Times, who published the May 14, 2017 commencement speech he gave to the students at Hampden-Sydney College.\u00a0 \u201cSafe spaces, physical and intellectual, are for children,\u201d writes Stephens. \u201cYou are grown-ups now. If your diplomas mean anything, it\u2019s that it is time you leave those spaces behind forever.\u201d\u00a0…<\/p>\n

Read More Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/catherinedenial.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/catherinedenial.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/catherinedenial.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catherinedenial.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catherinedenial.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/catherinedenial.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/catherinedenial.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catherinedenial.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catherinedenial.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}