Running 2016-17 college microaggressions/safe spaces thread

No. The letter is suggestive of why Univ. of Chicago is all that and a bag of chips ...

 

I have to say I'm baffled by the contention (not yet seen on this thread, but rampant elsewhere) that safe-space/trigger-warning policies are making students unprepared for "the real world." Don't most adults spend most of their life in the "real world" in professional settings? Isn't that the place where most adults engage in, and become part of, institutions? The workplace is far more restrictive and coddling than any college out there.

In college, I could say "Fuck you" to any student or professor on campus, and the worst thing that would have happened was that I might have gotten my ass kicked. If I said that to a coworker, I'd have a meeting with HR that day. "Real life" is far more limiting on speech than college.

 

The Alabama football of academics, eh?

 

When my niece was looking at schools, she wasn't interested in visiting University of Chicago.

Word on the street is that it's where, "fun goes to die."

 

Here's where the courts and civil cases come in. Until we revamp how those settings work, we incentivize hustlers looking for a reason to be offended, and we decentivize free exchange of ideas.

And what's really scary: The "safe spacers" will drive off the moderate thinkers out of nothing more than not saying or thinking things "the right way." They'll silence mild disagreement, which will create a vacuum that only the louts and truly racist/sexist choose to fill, because they revel in being truly racist and sexist.

It's fucked up.

 

The bookstore, in fact, sells T-shirts that say that.

 

Really?

The Barnes & Noble? I need to get one of those.

 

When I was attending a Big Ten school that shall remain nameless, the professor used the business term "Chinese wall," which refers to preventing any appearance of a conflict of interest within a firm. The term's origin, of course, is the Great Wall of China, not exactly a source of national embarrassment there. The next day, the professor had to explain her usage to the class and pledge not to use it any more, as an offended student had complained and gotten her way. Hail to the victor, I guess. Oops. Have I said too much?

 

Good thing the B-school wasn't teaching about Mexican standoffs.

 

And that was years ago, right?

Just wait until this latest round of PCBS rolls through. It'll get downright puritanical. Universities are scared to death of getting their asses sued off, especially on the Title IX sexual assault/harrassment front.

 

God, I can't imagine how terrifying it would be to have to discuss Dutch auctions.

 

At these auctions, do they sell ovens? I've heard a lot about their ovens...