The backlash against “trigger warnings” on college campuses such as the University of Chicago confuses two different issues. On the one hand, reasonable people can — and do — disagree about whether the remedy of avoiding offense and striving for “safe space” is worthwhile or counterproductive. On the other hand, however, we should not conclude that there is no problem to be addressed.
Skepticism about the treatment for discrimination is not the same as denial of disparities. Starting at the back end, with an earnest attempt to create community, only suggests the latter. Perhaps opponents of “trigger warnings” mean to do that, display indifference to important concerns, but if they do not then there is a better framing of the dilemma.
Allow me to present an argument, actually two arguments. First, to begin at the beginning, there remains meaningful bias, including microaggression, that deprives students of the opportunity to achieve their potential. Second, limiting the scope of intellectual discourse is not an ideal means to improve matters.
Since this is an area in which everyone’s motives are suspect — itself lamentable among those who wish to be open-minded albeit understandable given the unfairness at hand — I will set forth my own bona fides and position (accepting the risk of immodesty).
I have been dedicated to fighting prejudice and ensuring access to higher education. That does not mean merely that I, as an Asian American, stand up and speak out for people who happen to look like me, though I do that, but also that I strive to be principled. Most of my career was at a historically black college/university, and I have been associated with an institution serving the Deaf. I also served as a member of a local government agency that ruled in favor of LGBT rights well before the Supreme Court did.
All the same, I am on record in favor of free speech. As the head of an institution of higher education, when I confronted internet hatred, which seemingly has become the dominant mood of virtual reality, I directed our communications office expressly. They were not to engage in censorship of comments posted to our website. To show my power over the words used to humiliate me and document a past people wish to forget, I collect racist ephemera — the propaganda of a bygone era that openly states Asians can never be true Americans.
What has happened, as often does with volatile subjects, is that we have mixed up distinct questions. That makes it much more difficult to come to any consensus on answers.
There should not be doubt that African Americans and Hispanics, as well as some Asian American ethnicities and poor whites, face tangible disadvantages in pursuing learning. On average, blacks and whites simply do not possess the same financial resources. Headlines continue to be made about the terrible history: some prestigious universities such as Georgetown and Brown owe their endowments to the sale of slaves, and let us be clear, that means black slaves.
There is considerable research, as robust as any social science, demonstrating stereotype threat and implicit bias. Minorities, in a manner unknown to the majority, bear a burden of representing a group, with all of the negative effects that has on supposedly objective measurements of merit. There is underrepresentation all throughout the educational pipeline, even of Asian Americans reputed to be overachievers.
A specific example of microaggression that is casually dismissed is the cliched inquiry about where someone is “really” from. It is said that there is nothing wrong with asking people where they are from. True enough; I agree. The trouble is that only some people, and the selection is based on race (Asians, Latinos, Arabs, those who are darker or seem somehow “foreign” despite family lineages dating back generations on this soil), are not permitted to declare their identity, but instead have it assigned to them. The persistence of the interrogation, after it is apparent it is unwelcome, is what is wrong. It is nothing in isolation; but as a signal sent repeatedly, a prelude to a hate crime or imprisonment, it is not trivial.
Those who are dismissive suppose we are dedicated to cataloging grievances. It is the opposite. We are trying to establish equality.
That is the why and wherefore of not coddling anyone. To Napoleon is attributed the admonition never to stop your enemy when he is making a mistake.
As contrary as it seems, we have to allow appalling beliefs to be articulated, even falsehoods to be uttered and published. It is only when and where they are in the open that we can respond, using reason. If we can see absurdities, hear abominations, then we can destroy them. But if nonsense is suppressed, then the people who hold such opinions — who may be accustomed to being social superiors ― come to be aggrieved. A role reversal occurs, at least in their minds. They perceive they have been oppressed, even if that is unwarranted. It is they who are persecuted, justifying their revenge.
So bigotry has come back into fashion. Except now it poses as ironic. Bullying has always demanded that it not be taken seriously. That is part of how people get away with it, as we acquiesce to them: we tell the victim, just ignore it or retort that sticks and stones can break my bones but words can never hurt me. Sticks and stones follow the words; and the words are harmful enough.
Since I have been an authority figure, to my surprise, I have seen that assumptions are made too quickly from a single instance of behavior. I can be on either side of these controversies. A thoughtless comment can become the basis of an indictment proportionate only in a witch-hunt — a phenomenon anything but progressive. More telling than what was uttered supposedly out of ignorance is whether there is willingness to become aware. I know I am privileged in some contexts. But oddly I am not everywhere and at all time. Each of us can be perceived as a harasser, as we can be heckled. I am persuaded by patterns of conduct. I try to be considerate: while in teaching students how to sue people (what I do for a living), I cannot have them taking offense at every hypothetical dispute, I have no cause to sabotage them either.
Yet our imposition of “political correctness” only aids those who ridicule us. It gives them more than it gets us. During a time of political malaise, in his masterpiece of a movie, Manhattan, Woody Allen exclaimed to his New York City friends, presumably liberals, that the way to deal with the Nazis who were planning to march was to meet them with physical force. His enthusiasm was extreme. But neither his companions at the cocktail party nor he would have thought to ban the Nazis. They realized that atrocious ideas must be exposed or they acquire all the more allure.
Those who attack trigger warnings have taken aim at the wrong target; the proponents of them, too. What has occurred is much worse for classroom conversation than anyone recognizes. Our willingness to accept that everyone has a right to speak has mutated into our assumption that everyone is right when they speak — at least so long as they are sincere, because we cannot challenge their feelings. There can be only a series of self-centered assertions of our impressions or expressions of our own emotions, if we are discouraged from contradicting, rebutting, refuting, and ultimately defeating a prior speaker. Or to phrase it much more positively: to persuade her, or if she turns out to be an ideologue then to convince the audience.
Our democracy depends on dialogue. Civic engagement calls upon us to have something to say, not to tell anyone they cannot speak but acknowledging that some take for granted the platform they would deny others.