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Raw Story summarizes a New York Times report that Colleges across the country this spring have been wrestling with student requests for what are known as "trigger warnings," explicit alerts that the material they are about to read or see in a classroom might upset them or, as some students assert, cause symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder in victims of rape or in war veterans.
The debate has left many academics fuming, saying that professors should be trusted to use common sense and that being provocative is part of their mandate. Trigger warnings, they say, suggest a certain fragility of mind that higher learning is meant to challenge, not embrace. "Any kind of blanket trigger policy is inimical to academic freedom," said Lisa Hajjar, a sociology professor, who often uses graphic depictions of torture in her courses about war. "Any student can request some sort of individual accommodation, but to say we need some kind of one-size-fits-all approach is totally wrong. The presumption there is that students should not be forced to deal with something that makes them uncomfortable is absurd or even dangerous."
Greg Lukianoff, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, said, "It is only going to get harder to teach people that there is a real important and serious value to being offended. Part of that is talking about deadly serious and uncomfortable subjects."
A summary of the College Literature, along with the appropriate trigger warnings, assumed or suggested in the article is as follows: Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice" (anti-Semitism), Virginia Woolf's "Mrs. Dalloway" (suicide), "The Great Gatsby" (misogynistic violence), and "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" (racism).
Note: The Raw Story link was provided to provide an alternative to the article source, the New York Times, due to user complaints about the NYT website paywalling their articles.
(Score: 2) by Lagg on Monday May 19 2014, @08:42AM
"This biology chapter on digestion is a trigger for me because I'm a vampire and vampires don't have anuses. It's insensitive to people like me who identify as vampires."
http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 19 2014, @08:50AM
Don't you mean "respiration" because "vampires don't breathe."
(Score: 2) by Jaruzel on Monday May 19 2014, @09:36AM
In Vampire lore (and I'm pretty sure in the later Anne Rice books as well), it's explained that Vampires drink blood to replenish their own blood and thus keep their bodies looking hipster and trim. They don't digest the blood as 'food' - it just gets inserted into their cells and bloodstream somehow. Ergo, they either have no anus or it's puckered up so tight that you couldn't even shit a needle through it.
Wow, I don't know what's worse; that a) I know this much about Vampires, or b) I actually bothered to type the above.
-Jar
This is my opinion, there are many others, but this one is mine.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 19 2014, @10:09AM
That must be awfully inconvenient for vamps who enjoyed anal in life and want to continue doing anal in their unlife.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 19 2014, @10:52AM
I assumed that vampire anuses were present, but non-functional.
Like men's nipples.
(Score: 1) by Horse With Stripes on Monday May 19 2014, @10:12AM
How about "Vampires don't breath through the anuses they don't have"?
(Score: 1) by Oligonicella on Monday May 19 2014, @12:23PM
Don't correct him, you bastard! He's sensitive!
(Score: 3, Funny) by nitehawk214 on Monday May 19 2014, @03:43PM
No, he is just the DM from the Anus Shade campaign. [bash.org]
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh