And then there's this: "Connecticut College Cancels Classes Over Racist Graffiti"

A bathroom stall is not a safe place.

Safe Spaces, Microaggressions, and Trigger Warnings

(Or, "A Little Dirt is Good for You")

Okay.  This has been bothering me for a while, and I want to know what you think.

It started with this article on "micro-aggressions".  Then this one on "trauma warnings".  And this morning, an op-ed about "safe spaces".

The "money quote" (if you'll pardon the expression):  A key passage:

Now students’ needs are anticipated by a small army of service professionals — mental health counselors, student-life deans and the like. This new bureaucracy may be exacerbating students’ “self-infantilization,” as Judith Shapiro, the former president of Barnard College, suggested in an essay for Inside Higher Ed.

But why are students so eager to self-infantilize? Their parents should probably share the blame. Eric Posner, a professor at the University of Chicago Law School, wrote on Slate last month that although universities cosset students more than they used to, that’s what they have to do, because today’s undergraduates are more puerile than their predecessors. “Perhaps overprogrammed children engineered to the specifications of college admissions offices no longer experience the risks and challenges that breed maturity,” he wrote. But “if college students are children, then they should be protected like children.”

The subject of germs came up the other day in Block 2, and I suggested, only half-tongue-in-cheek, that we're getting too sanitized these days: a little dirt is good for you.  It helps you build up immunities. Are we over-protecting ourselves?

At the same time, I am sympathetic to those people who have experienced psychological trauma, and I don't mean to belittle their sufferings.

So what do you think?  Read any or all of the articles linked-to above, and respond below.  (Or, directly to the in-basket, if you'd prefer.)  By "respond", I mean a lectio.  So, pick a passage from one of the articles, identify it, and respond to it.  [Hat tip to Jacob Burns.]

Due Date: Monday, March 30.