Assault doesn’t quite fit with those others – assault is illegal, while most forms of harassment and intimidation (in the everyday sense of the words) are legal. The idea of safe spaces creates a place where even the legal forms are socially unacceptable, and where people can feel free to share their experiences in a welcoming environment without being doubted or challenged. Some people really are afraid to speak up because they don’t want to be shouted down, and safe spaces guarantee a place where they can do so.
I think it’s a very good perspective because that’s exactly what they’re doing. They’re segregating people by race.
Do you think “no whites allowed in our safe space” is somehow less offensive than “no Irish” signs or “colored” drinking fountains?
I read your article BTW, thanks for posting that. I got to this point: “Marginalized groups have a right to claim spaces in the public realm where they can share stories about the discrimination they have faced without judgment and intrusion from anyone else.” and my thought was “that’s bullshit.” The only groups I can think of to try to lay claim to spaces in the public realm recently are OWS, who cried when their trashy camps got bulldozed, and the Malheur Wildlife Refuge occupants, several of whom I believe got shot for their troubles. Black Lives Matter has blocked highways and intersections at times (and some have gotten arrested for it), and the protesters in the video from the OP blocked an intersection, but I’d say the bulk of the evidence suggests that marginalized groups do NOT have a right to claim spaces in the public realm.
Went with a 5th column approach huh? 
I remember dealing with Sather gate in the 80s (I took a few transfer classes at Cal), and my son is there now. He had to do a quick jog around to make it to his midterm on time (not too much of a risk really, just a distraction). Lets just say that his support of that particular issue is now close to non-existent.
I don’t think safe spaces should be mandated by universities, but they should be encouraged. Perhaps library conference room #4 is designated as a safe space for sexual assault victims Monday evenings, and for black students Tues evenings, and for LGBTQ students Wed, etc. Anyone is free to attend, and the university sets rules about what behavior is allowed in those designated safe spaces, with assigned volunteer monitors. These monitors can write up any violators of these rules and the university can ban that student from attending safe space meetings from then on.
Alternately, safe spaces are assigned and students get up and walk out en masse if they feel they are being violated.
I don’t know if these solutions are perfect, and I don’t understand everything about these issues (and probably can’t, considering my straight-white-maleness), but that’s what I’m throwing out there for the discussion.
When a massive news organization is intentionally dishonest about an event then they are inventing, or perhaps concocting, a news narrative with no basis in reality. Naturally, it may not meet the standards of general tetrapyloctomy.
This part made me cringe. College kids sometimes engage in anti-social behavior. They may be rude in safe spaces, disruptive in class, shout down speakers at events, or even block the Sather Gate for whites and Asians. I don’t think universities generally ban people from classes, events, or campus for those behaviors. I don’t know, maybe it’s worth revisiting that.
Being doubted or challenged is not harassment or intimidation. If what they want is a place to talk without being disagreed with, why do they need the university to provide such a place and why do they fell white people are the only ones who disagree with others? Some white people are very accommodating and some hispanic people can be very contentious. Shouldn’t people be judged by their actions and not their skin?
The point of safe spaces is so people don’t have to worry about being shouted down or disrupted when they’re talking about their rape (or other experience). Universities wouldn’t hesitate in disciplining a student who disrupted, say, a student theater event, or concert – why couldn’t they discipline someone who disrupted a safe space event?
I can’t imagine what it’s like to be raped, or were I raped, to talk about it afterwards. It seems reasonable that such women might like a place where they can be sure that they will be welcomed and not attacked for sharing their experience, and it seems reasonable to me that universities should provide such a place for their students.
Unless we don’t care about rape victims having a place to feel comfortable sharing their experiences.
Do you have a better solution to make sure rape victims aren’t discouraged to speak?
Go back to Russia, commie.
Regards,
Shodan
I think universities would want to encourage rape victims to feel comfortable in speaking out about their experiences. If there’s no venue where they can speak out without having to worry about being challenged or attacked, then I think they would be far less likely to do so, from what I understand about the incredible trauma of rape.
And nothing in my post had anything to do with skin color.
You mean straw-man land? That’s where he was with regards to my post.
A whole dorm should be a safe space?Cal State LA offers segregated housing for black students | The College Fix
Probably not a lib-approved source but I don’t care. And it seems like only certain people qualify for safe spaces why is that?
Universities hesitate to discipline students for all sorts of things that they probably could be disciplined for. Shouting down or otherwise disrupting a Milo Yiannopoulos event? Certainly could be punished, but I don’t think it has been. Blocking the southern entrance to campus is the sort of thing that someone could be disciplined for, but I don’t think it happens in practice.
I know it’s unrelated to campus events, but I was delighted to read that this woman is being punished for stealing Trump signs. Usually those sort of things go unpunished.
This is not hair-splitting.
The complaint above was not that Fox News “invented a news narrative,” but rather that the event itself could not be credited to exist until some other evidence of its existence besides Fox News was presented.
A “news narrative,” is not trivial, to be sure, but inventing a news narrative about an event is not the same thing as inventing the event itself. Amd that latter sin does not rest with Fox.
I guess the real problem I have is the default assumption that whites would be disruptive or rude to blacks in their safe space. It’s one thing to say, “we want to exclude disruptive and mean-spirited students from this ‘safe space’”. It’s a bit of a different animal to say, “we want to exclude whites from this safe space” - not because they were rude or disruptive, but because they’re white.
(whites and blacks are offered as just one example here, since the video in the OP seemed to touch on racial issues. You could make the same example with men and women or gays and straits)
Milo needs a safe space to speak. How ironic. Universities also need to stop being hypocrites.
Seems inappropriate to me, but I’d be open to hearing why they think this is necessary, and the good outweighs the bad.
But the article notes that the housing options are open to all students.
Perhaps they should be disciplined, though I would encourage universities to refrain from inviting white supremacists and misogynists (or people who routinely say white supremacist and misogynistic things) to speak to students.
I don’t know if these things go unpunished, but it’s good that this was addressed.
I’m just not a fan of racial segregation. I think regardless of who wants it the downsides outweigh the upsides. Gender segregation is a bit trickier, imo.
And regardless of the content of a speech or the character of a speaker university students have the right to discuss topics, in peace, regardless of how offensive others find them.
Are you sure you don’t want the whole campus to be a safe space? Traditionally universities are places where one’s views get challenged and where differing viewpoints are heard, evaluated, discussed, even debated. I would think that Dopers, more than the average person, would understand the value of this.
It seemed to me to be right on the money. The students in question wanted to exclude other races from their safe spaces. Not because of their actions, because of their color.
Regards,
Shodan