Trigger Warnings Advantages

In the article “Trigger Warnings, Safe Spaces and Free Speech, too” published in the New York Times by Sophie Downes, Downes argues in response to a letter sent out by the dean of the University of Chicago. The letter states that safe spaces and trigger warnings were an issue deterring students from having free speech and therefore would not be supported on the Chicago campus anymore. Downes argues that the letter was just a poor attempt to advert attention away from the real issues on the campus—ones that the dean will not meet with student council about and will not talk about at all. Sophie Downes argues that safe spaces and trigger warnings actually encourage free space and enhance support and community—two values that the dean said were deterred by the existence of them.

As a class, we mainly fell into the category of those who would not tell a professor if they had any concerns regarding a class. The standard here with the usage of trigger warnings is how do we as a society know what actually will require a trigger warning. If no one has a standard, then the policy would be mocked for being too lackadaisical. I see trigger warnings being necessary in some situations where I would want to know if something graphic is going to be shown to me. We came across two definitions of safe spaces in the class: 1) an actual physical safe space and 2) an ideological safe space. The concern with the physical safe space is that it seems more reductive or childish, which interestingly enough is how the Baby Boomers assess our generation.

After reading the article I concur with the author’s views on colleges coddling students who are offended by words or small actions is doing more harm than good. The article covered the issues in detail and gave many examples of the conception before the 1980’s when children could roam free in the world with less worry for parents to where next generation who had more protective parents because of the increase of kidnappings, removal of physical activities in school, school shootings, and bullying after the 1980’s.The authors discuss how coddling is not good for students, society, the workplace, government or the future. Coddling removes cognitive thinking and the use of good critical thinking skills. Coddling will force students to think with emotion instead of logic. Society will not always bend over backwards to appease ones feelings or change to make someone feel comfortable. Thinking with emotions can create a fog that can hinder ones view of reality.

Bridges’ argument in Why students need trigger warnings failed to address how some students might use trigger warnings to avoid a reading or an assignment. His personal experience with a student with trauma, though, helps incite sympathy and suggest to readers that trigger warnings are necessary to avoid further physiological harm to students. However, AAUP’s argument still sustains credibility because many professors have similar views that trigger warnings marginalize topics like sex and race and they react by avoiding those topics.

In his book, Unlearning Liberty (2014) Greg Lukianoff, President of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) asserts that violations of free speech— whether by students, faculty, or administration—will have devastating effects in greater society. Lukianoff supports his assertion by describing cases he has seen throughout his career at FIRE. From administration punishing students to professors getting fired for clearly protected speech. Lukianoff’s purpose is to point out the misguided lessons about freedom that are being taught on campus and to encourage his audience to stand up for freedom on campus. Lukianoff writes in an earnest tone to an audience who recognizes the importance of freedom in America society.

Benjamin Franklin once said, “Without freedom of thought, there can be no such thing as wisdom; and no such thing as public liberty, without freedom of speech.” Indeed, free speech is a large block upon which this nation was first constructed, and remains a hard staple of America today; and in few places is that freedom more often utilized than on a college campus. However, there are limitations to our constitutional liberties on campus and they, most frequently, manifest themselves in the form of free speech zones, hate speech and poor university policy. Most school codes are designed to protect students, protect educators and to promote a stable, non-disruptive and non-threatening learning environment. However, students’ verbal freedom

In the two essays, How Trigger Warnings Are Hurting Mental Health on Campus by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt and The Trigger Warning Myth by Aaron R. Hanlon, the authors have opposing sides to trigger warnings abusing mental health. Lukianoff and Haidt claim that trigger warnings hurt the mental health crisis on campus. In contrast, Hanlon argues that trigger warnings are not the problem and that is what happens when the mental challenges of students become flashpoints in our culture. I agree with both authors because mental health seems to be avoided rather than supported, therefore, trigger warnings being a problem and because our culture has made it difficult to adapt to people with mental disabilities.

Trigger statements are becoming more and more popular in syllabi, especially on college campuses. These provide students, especially those with post-traumatic stress disorder, with a warning about possibly uncomfortable content that could cause a flashback or panic attack. There are several different opinions about trigger warnings. Jenny Jarvie, the author of the article “Trigger Happy,” believes that they have gone too far and are a detriment to society (Jarvie 6). To enhance Jarvie’s point further, in their article “The Coddling of the American Mind” Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt explain how trigger warnings cause metal illness on campuses across the country. The opposing view is that they are necessary to have a fulfilling learning

The implication was that students who support trigger warnings and safe spaces are narrow-minded, oversensitive and opposed to dialogue. The letter betrayed a fundamental misunderstanding of what the terms “trigger warnings” and “safe spaces” mean, and came across as an embarrassing attempt to deflect attention from serious issues on campus.

In Lindsay Holmes’s article “A Quick Lesson on What Trigger Warnings Actually Do,” she states that trigger warnings are misinterpreted cautions notifying whether or not a discussion could cause emotional distress, and often are not implemented for this reason. Holmes begins by recounting when the University of Chicago announced they would not be focusing on Trigger Warnings or safe places; although the university later tells expresses that their initial statement was misinterpreted, the author uses this to open the discussion on the importance of trigger warnings.

Over the past few years, the environment of American college campuses has changed drastically. More so than ever before, students and faculty must be extremely careful over their words and actions because of the recent trend of protecting students from anything that can offend them or cause them discomfort. The young men and women who are currently attending these institutes of higher learning will be the next generation of leaders in real-world politics and business and will be forced to deal with difficult people, opposing views, and uncomfortable ideas on a regular basis. In order to deal with the inevitable difficulties that they will face as professionals, their beliefs must be challenged and

The author writes that trigger warnings are warnings on certain offensive material such as race, rape, war, etc that may upset some people. The author writes that these trigger warnings are an approaching threat to academic freedom. They write that one university named Oberlin College has already started to make trigger warnings a mandatory teaching practice for teachers. The author then proceeds to state what they believe the classroom should be, writing that the classroom is not made to protect students but to challenge them. Even if at some discomfort for that will be inevitable. The author also states that trigger warning can create a chilly climate that stops critical thinking and make students afraid to ask questions. Making students afraid to ask questions and causes an echo chamber of ideas and not having any other opinion in the discussion. The author then gives an example of how trigger warnings can be a censorship tool like the American Library Association who give ratings for many books, on labels for some material because if the people labeling are biased against one opinion they can see an opposite opinion and call it offensive making other not read the material. The author then moves to teachers and their rights on how to teach, writing that teachers should be able to choose whether or not they want to use trigger warnings, one of the reasons for this idea, according to the author is because triggers can be so extensive that you wouldn't be able to accommodate for all students causing punishments on teachers if not done correctly. The author then writes that teachers may not want to use trigger warnings, because they can denture a student's attention from the overall meaning of the material or not even do it. The author then goes on to defend her point of trigger warnings not being appropriate for the class by stating that the class is no place

Are we the most sensitive generation of all time? Many people in our society think that our generation is so hypersensitive about everything. We are not hypersensitive to everything instead it is because we can obtain information so easily today that we as students fear that power. We learn about all these different things that can potentially hurt or offend some people on the internet so we try to not use this power. Thus, this forms a group of words that are regarded as taboo in society because they can trigger the emotions of others Thus, trigger warnings were created to help provide students on campus a safe space to not be affected by society, but is that good for the students? Recently, an article called “The Coddling of the American Mind” by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt states, “Trigger warnings are alerts that professors are expected to issue if something in a course might cause a strong emotional response” (Lukianoff 1). In their article, they counter the idea of trigger warning stating that avoiding or using trigger warnings would not help students instead we should help them slowly adapt to these extreme situations and word choice because they will not move on from that issue unless addressed. While another article, “The Trigger Warning Myth” by Aaron R. Hanlon redefines trigger warnings as something that should be use in a college setting because professors uses trigger warnings to remind the students the graphic content of the course. Both articles provide

“I had flashbacks, I had panic attacks, I was completely in misery for three days, I don’t even remember what happened.” Danielle Leong is a sexual assault survivor who suffers from PTSD. Leong was watching “Sons of Anarchy” on Netflix while a rape scene occurred, she had suffered from a panic attack. What Leong had needed, was a trigger warning. Imagine Leong in a classroom, comfortable in class and then being surprised with a horrific scene with no trigger warning from a professor, feeling threatened and questioning her safety. Colleges and students have been discussing if trigger warnings are needed in classrooms. Students have been requesting trigger warnings on syllabuses or at least a personal warning from professors before class for

Sally attended Joliet Junior College and took a general psychology class. One day when she attended her psychology class, her professor warned students of a topic that there were going to talk about in class which was how abuse can damage an individual’s mental state. Sally has been through abuse in her past and is uncomfortable with that certain topic, so she left class because she was alerted to the topic. Ultimately, she didn’t want to revisit her past of abuse. This is considered a trigger warning, in which professors give a warning about topics that they will discuss that can lead to some sort of discomfort for students. Trigger warnings are used on campuses that are considered a safe space. The term safe space is defined as an environment where students can feel like themselves and are not exposed to any harm physically or mentally (Google). Various of colleges/universities have safe spaces so that their students don’t have to go through discrimination of sorts or any harm. Safe spaces are good for students, but there are negative outcomes from it, such as it doesn’t let individuals who suffer and have trauma cope with what happened to them. Even though are negative outcomes from safe spaces, there are positive results that impact Millennials such as a decrease in anxiety and prevention of hate speech.