HYDE PARK — The University of Chicago is holding a forum on tensions between academic freedom and diversity on campus when students return for the winter quarter.
In August, the university became the center of debate about academic freedom when Jay Ellison, dean of students, wrote to incoming freshmen that the university would not support “intellectual safe spaces” or “trigger warnings.”
Faculty leaders are now addressing the balance between academic freedom and protections for marginalized groups directly with a panel discussion on Tuesday, the day students return to campus for the winter quarter.
The forum involves many of the university academics who in September tried to clarify the university’s position, including law professor Geoffrey Stone, because the university’s policies do support the tools decried in the letter.
“The issues about academic freedom are about canceling speakers, intimidating students and faculty from saying things, demanding that the university punish students for saying things that other students don't like. That's the threat,” Stone told “On the Media” in September. “It’s not about trigger warnings, frankly, and safe spaces.
“It's about the effort to exclude from universities the expression of ideas that some students disagree with. That's the threat to academic freedom. And it is as serious a threat as we've seen in the last 40 years.”
The controversy arose because the term “safe space” is more commonly used at the university to denote a space where marginalized groups can gather without fear of persecution.
Trigger warnings have become a hot button issue because, though they started as a warning for students to prepare themselves for emotionally difficult subjects, they have come to represent a way for students to avoid topics they find distasteful or disagreeable.
Students at the university reacted harshly to the dean’s disapproval of the terms, which they said appeared ignorant of how the tools are actually used on the U. of C. campus to support academic freedom.
The panel will discuss academic freedom means on the Hyde Park campus and what it has come to mean more broadly at universities.
The discussion will be moderated by Gina Miranda Samuels, an associate professor at the university’s School of Social Service Administration and a faculty affiliate of the Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture.
The panelists include Stone and John Boyer, dean of the undergraduate college at the university. Also participating will be Zareena Grewal, associate professor in the departments of American studies and religious studies and the program in ethnicity, race and migration at Yale University, and Lorraine Gutiérrez, a professor of social work and psychology at the University of Michigan.
The event starts at 4:30 p.m. in the lobby of the Social Services Administration building, 969 E. 60th St., and is free and open to the public.
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