The right shuts down free speech, too; Washington Post, 12/15/16

Catherine Rampell, Washington Post; The right shuts down free speech, too:

"The good news: Both the left and the right have reached consensus that free speech is important.

The bad news: “Free speech” has apparently been redefined to mean “speech with which I agree.”"

Here’s how I’ll teach Trump to my college students this fall; Washington Post, 8/11/16

Zach Messitte, Washington Post; Here’s how I’ll teach Trump to my college students this fall:

"...[W]e also need to listen and respect those students and professors who support Trump. That 19-year-old supporter just starting his sophomore year shouldn’t be dismissed automatically as a racist for supporting Trump. He’s a stand-in for our next-door neighbor, your child’s softball coach and my cousin’s spouse. Keeping the classroom open for discussion slows a student retreat to the anonymous online world of Yik Yak, where college-aged Trump supporters troll hate without ever directly engaging their classmates. That means that the possibility of ever broadening their perspectives organically will be lost.

There will be tense points and tempers may well flare. Why are Trump’s most ardent supporters rural whites without a college degree? Why does he belittle those he disagrees with? Where does his worldview and his preoccupation with Vladimir Putin come from? But there is a way to have these discussions in the classroom with respect. It will be up to our professors to defend the right to hold an unpopular position, even one that we strongly disagree with. Because if colleges and universities want to remain a training ground for future leaders, an incubator for new ideas or a place where a future political consensus is forged, civil discourse is a fundamental part of that higher calling.

This will not be an easy task, but it is a crucial one. While professors and administrators need to do everything they can to make sure that their campuses promote free speech, they also need to maintain civility and basic decency. And that’s tricky. Beyond higher education, how the nation wrestles with this same conundrum is important — and not just in the run-up to the election. In the weeks and months after Nov. 8, the country is going to have to understand what Donald Trump and Trumpism means going forward. Win or lose, it is critical that we study and interpret what his candidacy signifies beyond American politics. How the nation’s teachers integrate understanding Trumpism into their classrooms this fall, regardless of discipline, will go a long way toward finding some common ground with the 40-something percent of the voting population that supports him."

Is There Any Evidence Trigger Warnings Are Actually a Big Deal?; Science of Us, 12/15/15

Jesse Singal, Science of Us; Is There Any Evidence Trigger Warnings Are Actually a Big Deal? :

"What the conversation has lacked is any sort of solid information about how common trigger warnings, or debates about trigger warnings, really are on campuses. No one really knows whether the few anecdotal reports about truly ridiculous trigger-warning requests (a student in a class on rape law saying the term violate triggers her, for instance) are indicative of a bigger problem, or merely isolated instances that shouldn’t be spun into grand arguments about the decline of higher education, or the fragility of millennials, or whatever else.

Now we at last have some numbers. Last week, the National Coalition Against Censorship released the results of a survey about trigger warnings. The organization teamed up with the Modern Language Association and the College Art Association to ask those groups’ members to fill out a survey about their experiences with trigger warnings. The survey included both standard multiple-choice response items and chances for the respondents to write in their own responses.

It’s important to note that, as the NCAL itself acknowledges, this wasn’t a scientific survey — the organization didn’t conduct the usual, rigorous (and oftentimes expensive) procedure one would need to get a sample of respondents that’s approximately representative of the national population of college professors. (For one thing, the sample consisted, by definition, entirely of professors who study the subjects covered by the MLA and CAA."