Safe-spaces stifle Freedom of Speech
College is a place for young adults to discuss, share, and criticize ideas. Through this, students will be open to other points of view and possibly learn a new way of thinking. This allows the “best” ideas to rise to the surface and can create a common ground between two parties with differing opinions. This is how we learn, and can come to logical conclusions with healthy debate.
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According to Slate, safe-spaces were originally created to protect LGBT students when they faced harsh harassment and abuse where the societal culture concerning LGBT people was severe. While harassment and abuse of LGBT individuals is still very real, sexual identities are more widely accepted in American society and especially on college campuses. Many college campuses have support groups, clubs and rules that strictly support and protect LGBT individuals.
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Safe-spaces still exist to this day for women, and racial and sexual minorities. I support these types of spaces because they do not stifle any type of speech, they are there to merely give minorities a space to talk to others in their own minority group. There are legitimate reasons for these types of spaces and these people need protection.
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In recent years, some colleges have continued this idea in a more severe fashion. Safe-spaces have been extended in a manner where students visit them to avoid dissenting speakers with points of view that may trigger them. The purpose is to protect students from mental triggers and stress.
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But, in reality, this actively stifles opposing points of view from reaching them. To call these “safe” spaces, implies that every other place on campus is “unsafe”. This further implies that their opinion is right and any opposing opinion is wrong.
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A recent example of a university using this newer type of safe-space is Brown University, where a speaker known to being a critic of the term “rape culture” was invited to speak.
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According to The Washington Post, the University created a safe-space for students who were upset or offended by the speaker’s point of view. The safe-space room contained cookies, coloring books, bubbles, Play-Doh, pillows, videos of puppies and staff trained in dealing with trauma.
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While I am all for therapeutic devices and mental soothing, it does seem like their treatment goes a tad overboard. These students should instead organize a protest against the speaker, showing them that students disagree with their ideas.
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Outdoor safe-spaces can be used to create such an area of protest, which is a more reasonable usage in my opinion. But there have been instances of the press being silenced in these outdoor safe-spaces
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According to The Atlantic, a journalist at the University of Missouri was threatened by a student crowd while he attempted to cover their protest in their safe-space. The journalist was merely doing his job, he didn’t come in with a dissenting opinion. He was simply trying to report the news. This means that safe-spaces are also stifling Freedom of the Press.
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Safe-spaces merely create an unsafe environment for dissenting opinion, which defeats the purpose of the college environment.
On Psychology Today, Dr. Pamela B. Paresky said, “college is no place for students (or faculty) who are so ‘empathetic’ they manage to convince themselves and others that hearing opposing or even abhorrent views is a threat to their humanity; it should be a safe space for students to learn that the real-world effect of feeling uncomfortable while listening to a speaker is...feeling uncomfortable. Period.”
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While I do think there are times that safe-spaces are effective and even necessary, the modern interpretation of stifling outside opinion is simply wrong.
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These types of safe-spaces only reinforce echo chambers and group think, which is detrimental to discussion and coming to a place of common ground through healthy debate.
