The Faculty Senate passed a resolution last month weighing in on the debate over trigger warnings. The resolution, in essence, supports faculty who alert students of potentially uncomfortable material but “does not endorse offering ‘trigger warnings’ or otherwise labeling controversial material in such a way that students construe it as an option to ‘opt out’” of class materials.
The Editorial Board believes the Faculty Senate’s resolution was misguided and reflective of a lack of understanding of both trigger warnings and the AU climate.
A trigger warning, to be clear, is merely a warning at the beginning of a piece of content that alerts the reader, listener or viewer to potentially distressing material. Examples of such material include graphic violence, self-harming behavior, sexism and racism.
The Faculty Senate talks about the right to “freely communicate ideas” and then addresses the threat of censorship in its resolution, but trigger warnings, at their core, are about common decency and respect for others.
Is providing a “heads-up” to someone who might have a post-traumatic flashback really that much to ask? Such warnings would allow students to be prepared for these moments.
Nothing about trigger warnings encourages students to “opt out.” It is condescending for professors to suggest that more trigger warnings would lead to students attempting to avoid assignments on material they aren’t comfortable with on a large scale.
Furthermore, it’s unclear what, if anything, happened at AU to prompt the Faculty Senate to speak about this. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion, as Gilthorpe told the Eagle, that the resolution was more about responding to a long feature article that appeared in The Atlantic last month than a conversation that is happening at AU.
To the best of our knowledge, students are not pressuring professors to opt out of class material for trauma-related reasons on a large scale. While SG President Sasha Gilthorpe discussed trigger warnings on syllabi in her campaign last spring, SG is not advocating that trigger warnings be mandatory, at least not yet.
Students have reported that some professors already do provide trigger warnings or content advisories. We’re not aware of any major issues students or faculty in those classes have had. If, in certain cases, students do ultimately work with a professor to find a substitute book or film to write a paper on, it is hardly the end of academic freedom as we know it.
As it stands, the Faculty Senate’s intervention on this matter came across as out of touch and overly defensive. We urge them to reconsider their views on this matter.
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edpage@theeagleonline.com
