Trigger warnings . . .

[George64]

Alert: This has nothing to do with the ROTC riflery team.

Should College Come With Trigger Warnings? At Cornell, It's a 'Hard No.'  I think President Pollack made the right call.

NYT article
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[scoop85]

Alert: This has nothing to do with the ROTC riflery team.

Should College Come With Trigger Warnings? At Cornell, It's a 'Hard No.'  I think President Pollack made the right call.

NYT article
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Of course she made the right call. I'm a left-of-center guy, but this is a bunch of Tom Foolery.

[Trotsky]

It's not just a Left thing.  As we learn hilariously every day, some of our most fragile snowflakes comes from the Derp side.

[billhoward]

The NYT is following the WSJ OpEd people, who've been mining the kerfuffle at Stanford and to a lesser extent, Ann Coulter getting shouted down at Cornell.

I'm pretty much an absolutist on speaker's rights. If you go to a forum, at a university, the speaker speaks while the audience listens and in Q&A asks questions, likely pointed questions. Too many people feel that whatever cause they believe in justifies stopping the program because the speaker causes harm via access to the podium and a microphone.

Journal stories (commentaries). The first is by Stuart Kyle Duncan, the (conservative) Circuit Court of Appeals judge:

"My Struggle Session at Stanford Law School: A dean voices pride that students are being taught to stage tantrums rather than make a reasoned case."
 https://www.wsj.com/articles/struggle-session-at-stanford-law-school-federalist-society-kyle-duncan-circuit-court-judge-steinbach-4f8da19e?st=8lo7iy1o959926b&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

"Diversity and Free Speech Can Coexist at Stanford: We have to stop blaming, start listening, and ask ourselves: Is the juice worth the squeeze?"  https://www.wsj.com/articles/diversity-and-free-speech-can-coexist-at-stanford-steinbach-duncan-law-school-protest-dei-27103829?st=q54h0wm72ceoj2b&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

[jtwcornell91]

The NYT is following the WSJ OpEd people, who've been mining the kerfuffle at Stanford and to a lesser extent, Ann Coulter getting shouted down at Cornell.

I'm pretty much an absolutist on speaker's rights. If you go to a forum, at a university, the speaker speaks while the audience listens and in Q&A asks questions, likely pointed questions. Too many people feel that whatever cause they believe in justifies stopping the program because the speaker causes harm via access to the podium and a microphone.

Journal stories (commentaries). The first is by Stuart Kyle Duncan, the (conservative) Circuit Court of Appeals judge:

"My Struggle Session at Stanford Law School: A dean voices pride that students are being taught to stage tantrums rather than make a reasoned case."
 https://www.wsj.com/articles/struggle-session-at-stanford-law-school-federalist-society-kyle-duncan-circuit-court-judge-steinbach-4f8da19e?st=8lo7iy1o959926b&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

"Diversity and Free Speech Can Coexist at Stanford: We have to stop blaming, start listening, and ask ourselves: Is the juice worth the squeeze?"  https://www.wsj.com/articles/diversity-and-free-speech-can-coexist-at-stanford-steinbach-duncan-law-school-protest-dei-27103829?st=q54h0wm72ceoj2b&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

https://twitter.com/danroyles/status/1646183694695055366

[margolism]

Cornell mention by Bill Maher

Best to start watching from minute 3

[Trotsky]

Let me guess.  It's his typical garbage take about oh noes those wokies will doom us all.

[billhoward]

Maher was in fine spirits for this item. And the Cojones Trophy (first awardee, Martha Pollock) did in fact swing.

There is still maneuvering room between saying students today react badly to too many perceived slights ... and agreeing daily with WSJ editorials and with their op-ed members of the Screedwriters Guild. I do on occasion find myself nodding with some Journal edit page snippet and worrying I've become my grandfather.

[jtwcornell91]

Let me guess.  It's his typical garbage take about oh noes those wokies will doom us all.

Has he ever come to terms that he had a show called "Politically Incorrect" which was cancelled because he said something that disproportionately offended conservatives?

[George64]

In related news, the first novel by Toni Morrison, MA '55, has made the American Library Association's annual list of most challenged books.  The ALA defines a challenge as a 'formal, written complaint filed with a library or school requesting that materials be removed because of content or appropriateness.  Morrison's 1970 novel, 'The Bluest Eye,' has been criticized for its references to rape and incest.
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[billhoward]

In related news, the first novel by Toni Morrison, MA '55, has made the American Library Association's annual list of most challenged books.  The ALA defines a challenge as a 'formal, written complaint filed with a library or school requesting that materials be removed because of content or appropriateness.  Morrison's 1970 novel, 'The Bluest Eye,' has been criticized for its references to rape and incest.
.

You go, Toni.

In our [Boomers] lifetime, the finest boost to a writer or journalist was to have made Richard Nixon's enemies list. Art Buchwald (WaPost humorist) wrote of his sadness in never have made the list. Link is to an article about Buchwald's lament, not the actual column: https://newspapers.bc.edu/?a=d&d=bcheights19760426&e=-------en-20--1--txt-txIN-------

[George64]

From BBC News:  The principal of a Tallahassee school has been forced to resign after a parent complained that sixth-grade students were exposed to pornography.  The complaint arose from a Renaissance art lesson where students were shown Michelangelo's statue of David.  One parent complained the material was pornographic and two others said they wanted to know about the class before it was taught.

The parents should know what their kids look at online.
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[Swampy]

Cornell mention by Bill Maher

Best to start watching from minute 3

Thanks. Very funny. But in fairness to the students, Maher trivializes the issue by ignoring the specific complaint that led to the students' proposal.

IIRC from the Times article, in this case, a former rape victim had a reading assignment that unexpectedly had a graphicly depicted rape scene. It's been some time since I read the article, but IIRC the student didn't ask to be excused from the assignment but only forewarned about the scene.

Given what goes on through other avenues, this seems reasonable. For example, I know of a graduate student who claimed math causes him anxiety attacks. His doctor wrote a note, and the university accepted this as a disability. So Disability Services told an economics instructor to teach the "concepts" in a required graduate economics course without using math. But Disability Services' service ended there. They provided the instructor with no clue on how to teach the subject sans math or texts that don't use math to explain the relevant economic concepts.

This is an example of how fear of a lawsuit achieves what far milder "trigger warnings" cannot. The administration's fear of a lawsuit effectively excused the student from mastering the course content, and the administration did not really care about the student's learning. In contrast, the "trigger warning" proposed at Cornell would simply prepare students for emotionally difficult subject matter.

[Trotsky]

Maher has not been funny since before 9/11.