https://nypost.com/2023/04/06/cornell-stanford-stand-up-to-woke-mobs-for-free-speech/
On March 31, I reported that Cornell’s student assembly unanimously voted to require trigger warnings for “traumatic” classroom lessons.
The resolution would have required the university’s professors to warn students about materials or lectures with topics “including but not limited to” sexual assault, domestic violence, self-harm, suicide, child abuse, racial hate crimes, transphobic violence, homophobic harassment and xenophobia.
While trigger warnings might be well-intentioned attempts to protect sensitive students, many researchers are finding they aren’t all that effective.
They also run the risk of chilling speech and causing professors — who can’t possibly anticipate what might trigger each student — to self-censor.
As I asked, “Is the implication that college students are too weak and feeble to hear the truth?”
But there’s some good news.
On Monday, Cornell president Martha Pollack and provost Michael Kotlikoff responded to the student assembly with a resounding “No!”
In an email to the student assembly, the pair said the trigger warning policy “violates our faculty’s fundamental right to determine what and how to teach” and could even tarnish the “academic distinction of a Cornell degree.”
They affirmed the policy “would unacceptably limit our students’ ability to speak, questio, and explore, lest a classroom conversation veer into an area determined ‘off-limits.’”
