Freshmen at the University of Chicago received a letter telling them to deal with it, stating that free inquiry and free expressions would not be curtailed by practices involving “safe spaces,” “trigger warnings” and “microaggressions.” Dean of Students Jay Ellison said that to defend diversity that led to the practice of “safe spaces,” it was essential to reject the spaces. (PJ Media, August 25, 2016, by Tyler O’Neil)
Jazz Shaw, Hot Air, August 25, 2016, commented on safe spaces: “Such patterns of behavior do nothing to prepare students for life in the real world where one meets others from all walks of life who may challenge their accepted notions. These hothouse flower environments leave graduates with a dangerous weakness when they enter the workplace or move out to start families of their own in diverse communities.”
The walling off of objectionable speech has been an issue at many other schools including Oberlin, Yale and Wesleyan, and the Chicago letter was seen by some university critics as a clear, direct way of reaffirming standards of expression. Last year a University of Chicago committee produced a report on freedom of expression that Columbia, Purdue, Princeton and Wisconsin among others have paraphrased in establishing their own policies. (The New York Times, August 27, 2016, by Richard Perez-Pena, Mitch smith and Stephanie Saul)