HYDE PARK — More than 150 faculty members at the University of Chicago signed on to a letter critiquing a controversial letter to incoming freshmen by the University of Chicago’s dean of students decrying trigger warnings and safe spaces.
The letter, published late Tuesday in the university’s student newspaper, was signed by 152 faculty members and serves as its own welcome letter to incoming freshmen to compliment the one sent by Dean Jay Ellison on Aug. 24.
Ellison’s letter sparked broad criticism for its position that the university would not support “trigger warnings” or intellectual “safe spaces,” controversial terms that are still poorly defined and decried by some as symptoms that today’s college students are intellectually sheltered.
“The right to speak up and to make demands is at the very heart of academic freedom and freedom of expression generally,” the faculty letter says. “We deplore any atmosphere of harassment and threat. For just that reason, we encourage the class of 2020 to speak up loudly and fearlessly."
Trigger warnings generally are a warning to students that material contains depictions of traumatic instances and students who have have been through similar experiences should prepare themselves appropriately.
The faculty letter traces the development of safe spaces to mid-century gay, feminist and civil rights movement participants to talk about ideas that were being repressed in the broader culture.
“It would be naïve to think that the University of Chicago is immune from social problems,” the letter says. “Yet the administration confusingly disconnects ‘safe spaces’ it supports (see the list of mentoring services on the College’s own web site) from ‘intellectual safe spaces’ that it does not, as if issues of power and vulnerability stop at the classroom door.”
Safe spaces generated the most contention after Ellison’s letter went out to freshmen because he had been trained in how safe spaces, broadly supported by the administration, were used on campus and and his letter was unclear about what he meant by the term “intellectual safe spaces.”
The faculty letter took the position that trigger warnings and safe spaces are not intrinsically biased towards censorship and encouraged students to speak up early and often in intellectual debates on campus if they had concerns that intolerance, bias and trauma would affect the debate.
“To start a conversation by declaring that such requests are not worth making is an affront to the basic principles of liberal education and participatory democracy,” the letter says.
A spokesman for the university was not immediately available to comment, but on Aug. 26 the university released a statement saying Ellison’s letter was directed at intellectual censorship only.
Academic freedom is a fundamental value at the university, the statement said.
“Among other things it means that faculty members have broad freedom in how they accommodate concerns that students may express, including advising students about difficult material,” the statement said. “The university does not mandate a specific approach to these issues. Student groups and university departments also will continue the important work of creating welcoming venues for conversation and dialogue.”
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