With a Strong Stance on Safe Spaces, U. of Chicago Sends a Mixed Message to Students

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The University of Chicago may have put itself at the forefront of a national debate over academic freedom by taking a hard line against shielding students from disagreeable ideas. But a letter from the dean of students that went viral on Thursday exposed continuing internal conflicts on the campus about free speech, protests, and trigger warnings.

The academic year has not yet started, but on social media some students applauded the letter from John Ellison to incoming freshmen. In it he wrote: “Our commitment to academic freedom means that we do not support so-called ‘trigger warnings,’ we do not cancel invited speakers because their topics might prove controversial, and we do not condone the creation of intellectual ‘safe spaces,’ where individuals can retreat from ideas and perspectives at odds with their own.”

Other students found his words condescending, arguing that the university seemed at times to ignore minority viewpoints.

“Sometimes I think it’s like two ships passing in the night,” said Adam Biesman, a junior who is an incoming member of the student government. “The university’s statement is that this is very focused on academic inquiry, this is what we’re talking about when you have trigger warnings. Their goal is to say we can’t censor academia, and this is how you become better students and thinkers. But a lot of students are not focusing on that part. And they think the university is almost actively trying to ignore other people’s experiences.”

In January 2015 the university adopted a statement of free expression on the campus that was heralded as a model for other institutions. It said that students should not be protected from ideas that “they find unwelcome, disagreeable, or even deeply offensive,” and that speakers should be unhindered by student protesters. The campus since then has been the site of several protests. In February members of the Black Lives Matter movement disrupted a speech by the Cook County state’s attorney, and supporters of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement against Israel confronted a speaker who was critical of the cause.

Matthew Foldi, a junior and president of the College Republicans, asked the student government last spring to adopt a resolution that would condemn the disruption of free speech on the campus. The decision to shelve the resolution, combined with the protests, he said, had probably helped inspire the letter.

“All these events clearly showed the administration a lack of understanding among enough of the student body, including students in position of authority, that they felt compelled to give students a heads-up so that they know what institution they are about to enroll in,” he said.

Mr. Foldi and Mr. Biesman strongly supported the dean’s letter. “As someone who has tried to fight for those values, I was pleased the university was taking a pro-inquiry, pro-discussion, and pro-debate position,” said Mr. Biesman.

‘Very Callous’

But the message, and some of the particular phrasing, offended others. Elizabeth Adetiba, a senior, called it “very callous.”

“The use of quotations — so-called trigger warnings, so-called safe spaces — to be honest with you, it was a little juvenile,” said Ms. Adetiba, who was on the dean’s advisory council with Mr. Ellison two years ago. “It seems the year I and other people spent talking with him about our experiences, it was like he didn’t hear any of that.”

She also said that she had never heard any student call for an intellectual safe space. “I don’t think the students are advocating for getting a free pass, looking at the syllabus and saying, ‘Oh, I don’t like this topic, I’m not going to go to class.’” And trigger warnings, she said, are just that: warnings of what’s ahead, not censorship. “It just gives you a second or two to do what you need to do to prepare.”

Ms. Adetiba said that campus leaders sometimes want to determine for students what is legitimate expression and what is not. She considered the protesters who interrupted the speech by the state’s attorney, for example, to be exercising their rights.

“Oftentimes the people who are defining free speech are people of a certain demographic,” she said: well off, white, and male. “They’re coming from a perspective that is 180 degrees to mine, someone who grew up black, lower-income, and is a woman.”

Karl E.H. Seigfried, a student in the university’s Divinity School and president of Interfaith Dialogue, a student organization, tweeted out on Thursday that he was making his group a safe space on the campus for members of minority religious traditions. In an email on Friday he said he worried that people in higher education sometimes take stances against safe spaces and trigger warnings in order to maintain a status quo in which women and minorities do not feel safe speaking out.

“I am not sure that receiving such a letter from upper administration,” he wrote, “effectively communicates the University of Chicago’s true and real dedication to an open dialogue in which a young Latina student can raise her hand in class and strongly challenge a statement made by a senior faculty member without fear of reprisal.”

University administrators did not respond to requests for comment about Mr. Ellison’s letter.

Geoffrey R. Stone, a law professor and former provost who led the committee on freedom of expression, which drafted the 2015 statement articulating the university’s commitment to free debate, said elements of the dean’s letter had been misunderstood. Faculty members can still give trigger warnings if they wish to, and students can create their own intellectual safe spaces on the campus. What Mr. Ellison meant, he said, “is that the university itself isn’t an intellectual safe space.”

“I think the intent was to say to entering students, Welcome, you’re coming to this amazing place, and we think you’re great,” he said. In September, Mr. Stone will be speaking to incoming freshmen about the university’s commitment to freedom of expression.

Beth McMurtrie writes about campus culture, among other things. Follow her on Twitter @bethmcmurtrie, or email her at beth.mcmurtrie@chronicle.com.