This past spring, after students at Lewis & Clark College in Oregon invited Jessica Vaughan of the Center for Immigration Studies to debate immigration policy on campus, they learned that the Southern Poverty Law Center designated the school’s center as a hate group.
The student committee in charge struggled with whether to let the event go on as planned but ultimately decided to proceed. As protesters from the community shouted and played sirens to disrupt the debate, students and faculty listened to Vaughan’s views and asked tough questions.
The Lewis & Clark event stands in stark contrast to happenings on many college campuses these days. For example, in February, the University of California–Berkeley canceled an appearance by Milo Yiannopoulos, a former editor at the far-right website Breitbart, after violent protests broke out.
The controversy gives prospective students new dimensions of college life to consider as they choose a school.
[Learn how to research campus politics to find the right college.]
“A university really is supposed to be a marketplace of ideas, and those ideas can and should be divergent at times,” argues Shaun R. Harper, a professor of education and executive director of the Race and Equity Center at the University of Southern California.
While visiting speakers may set off alarms only occasionally, more day-to-day concerns have risen around the concept of trigger warnings, which let students know when potentially upsetting material is on the syllabus.
The idea is that they could excuse themselves from discussions or class assignments that they believe might harm their mental health, such as content related to sexual violence or combat.
Get advice on [how to deal with mental illness in college.]
Opponents of such policies argue that they encroach on academic freedom and deny students critical knowledge and the opportunity to face uncomfortable ideas and grow from pondering them.
Many students and teachers say it’s possible to give students a heads-up without omitting upsetting facts or causing them to walk out.
“It’s just a precursor, like when you go to a movie, and you’re about to see a really violent trailer,” says Samantha Brinkley, a junior at Purchase College–SUNY majoring in photography and gender studies. “Before they show it, they have a rating, like rated R, because you want to get ready for what you’re about to see.”
So far, few institutions appear to mandate trigger warnings or prohibit them, leaving such decisions to the discretion of individual faculty members.
The notion of a college campus as a safe space, and the more prevalent creation of places where students can retreat from the stresses of being in the minority and spend time among like-minded peers, are also the subject of considerable controversy.
Some administrators and academics worry that when the safe space idea is carried too far, it might stifle the diversity of viewpoints in conversations and could leave graduates unprepared for situations in the real world where such “bubbles” won’t be available.
Proponents say that having a sense of security can actually encourage minority students who elsewhere feel silenced to engage in debate. “They’re places where students can decompress and access some cultural familiarity and support,” says Harper, who has conducted campus climate surveys of almost 50 colleges and universities.
Ricardo de la Cruz II, a senior English major at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, says he “sometimes feels like an alien” on campus as one of just about 2 percent of undergrads who are black and that the Multicultural Student Center has become an important support system.
[Consider a college with a focus on minority students.]
On the whole, colleges are making myriad efforts to support a diverse range of students. At the University of Tampa in Florida, an initiative called Diversity Fellowship hosts events to raise awareness of groups who are often marginalized based on their sexual orientation, gender, religion, race and socio-economic status, among other factors.
Numerous schools — Armstrong State University in Georgia, Concordia College–Moorhead in Minnesota, Kent State University in Ohio, the University of South Carolina and James Madison University in Virginia, among them — have Safe Zone and Safe Space programs in place that train students, faculty members and administrators to be special allies to LGBTQ and other groups.
For prospective students of color and those seeking a diverse and inclusive learning environment, it’s important to try to get a genuine sense of a school’s culture during a visit or by connecting with current or former undergrads. You “have to be willing to talk to alumni of color about the realities of race on the campus and to students of color who are juniors and seniors,” Harper advises.
Harper also suggests asking about the racial composition of the faculty and the student body as well as where in the curriculum students will learn about other people’s cultural histories. Prospective students should consider what is most important to them when it comes to finding the right fit and how much shelter and support they think they’ll want.
If trigger warnings and having a safe space are essential to you, consider a place with some sort of track record you can check out. A little reflection and research will go a long way in helping you find a place where you can thrive.
This story is excerpted from the U.S. News “Best Colleges 2018” guidebook, which features in-depth articles, rankings and data.
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Colleges Tackle Free Speech, Trigger Warnings, Safe Spaces originally appeared on usnews.com
