Recently, Northwestern University President Morton Schapiro penned an op-ed inThe Washington Post about the need for safe-spaces. He goes on a passioned defense of safe spaces, arguing that we need them.
I agree with him.
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And disagree with him.
I agree with him on the fact that people do need a chance to recharge. After all, we do have safe spaces here at Cal Poly. Every group of people has them. For some, like me, it’s the Catholic Church on Sundays at 6 where I gather for an hour with fellow Catholics to celebrate mass. Or the biweekly College Republicans meeting where we make fun of Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton (Martin O’Who?) Or when I go to Quiz bowl meetings and answer questions on obscure composers and artists from the 17th-18th century, while making fun of myself for not knowing who they were.
In essence, we all have unofficial safe spaces where we gather to talk and banter, without fear of being challenged by a different ideology. I’m not going to Church to hear a Jew talk about Christianity, nor is a Jew going to go a synagogue to hear a Christian talk about Judaism. I’m not going to go to a Cal Poly Democrats meeting, just like they aren’t coming to a Republicans meeting.
It is about the freedom of association we all enjoy. We all associate with different people. Republicans are often friends with other Republicans. Christians often have Christian friends. Jewish people often have Jewish friends. Muslims often have Muslim friends. That’s why we see things such as a Christian Students Club, a Jewish fraternity, or a Muslim Student Association.
We all need spaces where we can just chat and banter, without fear of being forced into a debate. Every student deserves that space.
However, what we cannot do is establish official safe spaces for things we don’t agree with. For example, Christina Hoff Sommersvisited Oberlin and Georgetown, which quickly lead to safe spaces being established. I wanted to laugh out loud when I first saw the story back in April of 2015. Safe spaces for sheltering from things that we’re afraid of, such as listening to a self-avowed feminist who doesn’t agree with your brand of feminism, is stupid and quite moronic.
Confronting uncomfortable learning, regardless if you’re conservative or liberal, is important. If I see a liberal professor talking about how conservatism is dangerous or stupid, I’ll confront them. And I would expect the same with a liberal student and a conservative professor (yes I know there is a liberal skew in universities, but the analogy still holds true.) We must challenge our bias and if it means we go through what we disagree with, then so be it. Safe spaces for things we don’t agree with are antithetical to learning.
It goes the same with all universities. We must challenge ourselves. That means we invite conservative and liberal speakers, instead of just skewing for liberal speakers. We cannot deny conservative speakers because liberal students may disagree with them, just like we cannot deny liberal speakers just because conservative students disagree with them. All speakers, likeCondoleezza Rice, must be invited.
EvenBill Maher, who is as liberal as they can get, was almost denied a speaking gig at UC Berkeley because of his views on Islam. He still spoke anyway and called out those students on being...well idiots.
President Obama has called for anend to this censorship of conservative speakers and safe spaces. He calls this coddling and that “when you become students at colleges, have to be coddled and protected from different points of view.”
There is a reason why I disdain the Yale University student whoyelled,”It’s not about creating an intellectual space! It is not!” Why the hell are you in college? To be told how awesome you are? You’re in college to learn and to grow, not to be coddled.
Or the protesters at Missouri who literally blocked the press and the journalism professor who calledfor ‘muscle’ to remove a cameraman. There is a reason why these kind of safe spaces must be ridiculed. Otherwise we will continue to see awave of stupidity of trigger warnings and these kind of safe spaces gallop across the damn nation.
I’ll end with a short story of my own. We recently invited a 'democratic socialist' by the name of Michael Parati. We didn't protest, we didn't interrupt the speech. A few Republicans and I attended the speech and heard him rail on the Founding Fathers and capitalism. We didn't disrupt. We listened and then left.
That’s the meaning of discourse. Confronting people who have different ideas than you and discussing them in a marketplace of ideas.
We all use safe spaces because of our yearning for belonging to a group. Those safe spaces must be protected, as they are essential to freedom of association. But we should disdain the ones that hide us from other opinions. The ones that lead to us coddling our minds when confronted by different thoughts. The coddling of the American mind cannot go further.
