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Judith Shulevitz distinguished between meetings where participants mutually consent to provide a safe space, and attempts to make entire dormitories or student newspapers safe spaces. According to Shulevitz, the latter is a logical consequence of the former: "Once you designate some spaces as safe, you imply that the rest are unsafe. It follows that they should be made safer."[7]
I agree, it's a college, it should already be "safe".....
Just more offshoot of the everyone wins/we have to boost their self-esteem generation....funny though, most college kids don't care one way or another if someone is gay, black, Muslim, etc., it's their parents that usually have the issues. Maybe they need "safe spaces" for the "grown-ups" instead.
Except that "safe space" has come to mean (to some) "a place where only people who think like me are allowed because, if you don't think like me, you are a part of the problem and a symbol of oppression." There is a distinct class of person who has zero interest in engaging in reasonable discourse.
"Safe Spaces" just started out as a way for people who are in the minority in some way to have at least one place campus they could go and not feel marginalized. It used to be just a meeting of a club or a room in a dorm or something. The idea was not to avoid conflict all together, but to get a break from it and maybe vent among people who would understand (or at least respect) your perspective. Maybe even plan how to combat campus attitudes/policies they found detrimental.
The irony is, I'm sure say the Campus Republicans club meeting operates as a "safe place" for right leaning people on left leaning campuses, they just don't call it that. LOL
I think Safe Space dorms and whatnot are too much. Instead, we need to teach college students how to have respectful dialogue. You are supposed to be able to debate ideas in college, even stupid ones.
Safe Spaces? Seems to me like just another way to further the "politically correct" agenda. Wouldn't you think that such places would be unnecessary is a decent world?
In any event, why give people a false sense of security?
Yep, the whole point of a safe space is to have someplace where you can actually discuss stuff without getting a bunch of representatives of the internet hive mind immediately jumping in with the straight white male perspective.
This isn't to imply that straight white guys don't have important things to say, but their perspective isn't the most helpful when you're trying to have a discussion about issues specific to, say, Asian people or women or some other group.
Note how often certain types of replies come up in any discussion on the internet. When people talk about college degrees, some people will instantly jump to the idea that STEM degrees are worth more than humanities degrees, and some people will automatically talk about trade school. When people talk about Star Wars, someone always instantly jumps to the prequel movies and how bad they are. When people talk about Islam, someone always brings up terrorism. And so on. Open discussions, especially discussions among people who are young and lack perspective on the world, tend to be very predictable.
Now, imagine that the immediate response to a topic coming up is something that is either mildly offensive to you or something that derails the discussion. If you're Asian, for example, discussions about Asian American issues that are open to everyone tend to get derailed by white people explaining how they're not part of the problem or how such-and-such isn't an important issue. If you're a woman, you'll instantly get men telling you that their problems are just as bad as yours or else minimizing your complaints (e.g., if your compaint is that you're sick of men ogling you when you work out).
Or, for more offensive examples, look at most online discussions of news stories that involve Asian people. Within the first few comments, you'll always run into something racist, sometimes something blatantly racist. Most online discussions about events that involve women will turn into men deciding whether or not they wish to mate with the woman involved.
This sort of discourse is exhausting!
It happens over and over and over, and eventually, people figured out that the only way to prevent it is to lock straight white people out of the discussion once in a while. It hurts them a bit, too, because straight white people aren't used to being denied access, and they're not used to being told that their opinions aren't valued.
Well, then need to toughen up a bit. Their opinions aren't important for the same reason my opinion on Lebanese cooking isn't important -- I have absolutely no experience with the subject, so I have nothing to add to the discussion. The difference, though, is that I don't go around pretending to know about Lebanese cooking techniques, so no one has to actively ban me from those discussions.
This isn't to say that straight white people are always wrong when they talk about these issues. Plenty of them have taken the time to learn what's what, and they can and do often take the time to discuss it with others. Even then, though, they're still reporting on someone else's experience rather than sharing their own experiences, so their discussions have their own appropriate contexts.
Meanwhile, it's incredibly valuable to ban those who only enter discussions of, say, women's problems in order to declare that women don't actually have any problems and that some man is more familiar with women's experiences than women themselves are.
And as an Asian person, I like the opportunity to discuss things without a peanut gallery of young white boys jumping in to make racist jokes, which is something that gets old really quickly.
The last place there should be a "safe place" per the Wikipedia description is in a university. So the other term for "safe place" is intolerance for other views and the elimination of the first amendment. The universities that provide "safe places" are doing a major disservice to their students.
The administrations at the universities are taking the easy road and not earning their money by not communicating the need for a complete education including exposer to all cultures, political leanings, sexualities, and ideas. This is the main reason for universities to exist.
The parents that think their kids need a "safe place" will by nexus implant in their kids an entitlement mentality and this will limit their kids potential in life.
"Safe spaces" at college are an oxymoron if you think about it.
Why go to college if you are worried that your ego may be "offended" by someone who disagrees with you ?
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