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In a meet-up I can actually call out the BS of the presenter or at least thoroughly ask honest questions. In a safe space, even if my question is honest and to the point, its validity is determined by the state of mind of the responder. So, that is there. The concept of safe space is nothing new, people usually call it home or club. But to impose safe space in the center of town square is the problem.

edit: also safe spaces promote acceptance of dogma over free thinking, which Universities claim to be centers of.

Interestingly enough at the safe space I went to, there was heavy discussion over whether BDSM should be allowed to be considered an alternative sexuality comparable to homo/bi/pansexuality. There was heavy disagreement and productive debate over this topic in a "safe space" for bi/pansexuals at the university.

I don't understand how there was dogma over free thinking in this context. I keep trying to understand where my experiences with things labeled "safe space" align with a rather big voice on the internet and within my peers that "safe space" meetups are somehow oppressive or regressive to ideals and communication. I wouldn't be offended that there exists literary workshops that I cannot attend or that there are physics conferences I wouldn't be welcome in because I know nothing of physics.

Could you suggest a "safe space" for me to enter and observe for myself that would better align with this issue? I understand there aren't any serious surveys or academic study listing experiences of "safe space" and their repercussions so I've been trying to seek out and gather my own data.

Have you ever been to a safe space and tried to participate in discussion? I think the grandparent comment is spot on. Honest questions in good faith are honored, even when they come from ignorance. What's not honored is people looking for a debate that involves "calling out BS". It's not the safe space's responsibility to educate you on social issues. The whole point is to exclude people who deliberately lack context and understanding so that the discussion can be had on more complex topics.

Also, as a straight, white person myself, I understand that there are some discussions where my opinions are irrelevant and unwanted because I simply haven't experienced what others have and am unable to understand and empathize as intimately. Excluding my opinion isn't a slight against free thinking, it's a shortcut because I have nothing to contribute.

"The whole point is to exclude people"

That's pretty much it. Also to actualize through the echo chamber.

Well, yes, if a prestigious research team in MIT excludes people who don't do computer science at all to participate in their research, is that also an actualization of an echo chamber? Should it also be protested?

This is silly. If anyone not trained in computer science and not at MIT still found a way to submit evidence or proof invalidating a hypothesis by said research team, they would not only embrace the evidence, they'd probably be pretty happy about it.

Here is an example, A woman who is an apostate of Islam was heckled in a prestigious University in England while giving her presentation, and the Muslim students claimed that the University is a safe space and that she should not allowed to speak. You know the best part, the University's feminist group concurred with their Islamic brothers over this poor woman's right activist who happens to be an apostate. So, there you have it. I could care less, where there about Muslim Student Association, where they sit in dorm and practice in peace, but they extend the definition of safe space to ENTIRE University and anything that is "offensive" to them cannot happen in the campus. That is the problem, I am stating.

Also, as a straight, white person myself, I understand that there are some discussions where my opinions are irrelevant and unwanted because I simply haven't experienced what others have and am unable to understand and empathize as intimately. Excluding my opinion isn't a slight against free thinking, it's a shortcut because I have nothing to contribute.

Or in other words, outside perspectives are never useful? All the advice about having papers / presentations proofread by people not involved, about looking to outside sources to check if you're stuck in a rut, about the value of diversity of backgrounds and opinions, is all bullshit and worse than useless?

The concept of safe space is nothing new, people usually call it home or club.

I was going to jump in and say this. Basically everyone has a "safe space" that they go to every day, but students often don't, especially the freshmen in residence randomly assigned roommates.

To designate a space on campus where students can go where their ideology will be respected no matter what just compensates for the fact they don't have a home that they can kick people out of.

The problem is that the safe space attitude spreads to the rest of the campus, which isn't OK, but it happens because of faculty attitudes and risk of litigation, and it would happen even if no designated safe spaces existed.

The way I see it, designating a safe space is a good way for universities to keep dogma out of classrooms.

I admit I haven't tried to research the "safe spaces" issue very much, but my very, very general understanding is that there quite a few different understandings of what a safe space is. Some people want their classrooms to be safe spaces in the sense that they'll be warned in advance and possibly allowed to opt out if certain uncomfortable things are discussed. This can become very awkward for professors who are teaching topics (think civil rights history, civil rights law, topics related to abuse or sex crimes, etc) that may be uncomfortable to some students.

In some sense, it's a bit like "political correctness". I doubt that the people who rail against political correctness and the people who encourage political correctness are talking about exactly the same thing.

Oh I see. I can understand that if a student is disrupting a class saying its too upsetting, there might be some issue with that. I've been to classes where a fundamentalist christian held up an entire lecture because he didn't agree with evolution (in a class called "evolutionary biology"). Is that a similar disruption happening in civil rights history/law classes?

I haven't specifically heard of that kind of overt disruption (which is not to say it doesn't exist). I do, however, know some professors who are currently nervous about teaching certain topics, even though those topics are fairly fundamental to their curricula.

They often are, but talk past each other, in what's known as a Motte and Bailey[1][2]. A mens rights group doesn't want to ban all women from holding positions of power, just the incapable ones. Who's a capable woman? Well, they haven't found one, but if they did they'd surely let her into their club. Their core argument sounds like it might meet you halfway, but they never do.

Variants along this argument come up all the time. It's pretty much the entirety of political speechwriting; Even Trump's most outlandish statements are forms of it. He'll proclaim to ban all muslims, back up to 'well, just enhanced screening', but darned if it's not going to be racist anyway. But on the opposite side, nearly every gun control argument ends up this way, with someone asking that just 'assault weapons' with 'no sports shooting value' be banned, and then their list of assault weapons is based on whatever the most common rifle is at the time.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_castle [2]http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Bait-and-switch#Motte_and_baile...

Political correctness is correct as long as it is not directly related to the required class material. For instance, you can't teach history without talking about slavery. If that upsets a student, then that is definitely her problem, not anyone else's.

The controversy seems to have been sparked because some students want more control over the content covered in their classrooms with a particular emphasis on triggering content. This is a distinct but related issue.

There is also the not new issue of students protesting speakers they think have objectionable views worth protesting on campus. This bothers some free speech advocates even though it is an expression of free speech. Something something totalitarianism, slippery slope, etc. I find it an overreaction from the right. In my personal opinion, speech is free when it is free to be in conflict.

So really there are very many issues developing right now on college campuses and they are all conflated together because the point is to have an enemy to hate ("SJW's" or "the regressive left"). So diverse issues and points of views are agglomerated into one ball of evil to hate. Some people refuse to allow college students, barely adults, to be wrong or misguided and learn from their mistakes. Also those same people like to pretend college students have immense power to censor speech at a scale that threatens what they find good in society.

There's also a certain zealotry in defense of the status quo which is probably older than history itself.

> There is also the not new issue of students protesting speakers they think have objectionable views worth protesting on campus. This bothers some free speech advocates even though it is an expression of free speech.

Citing free speech, to protest someone exercising their free speech, is... I dunno, there seems something backwards there. Someone is missing the point, at any rate.

This is not a study, but provides an example of "safe space liberalism" gone too far in a university. In here, students heckle the speakers trying to introduce dissenting opinions on that "safe space liberalism". It's 1.5 hrs long, but you might want to begin at the 2 min 45 sec mark to see the worst of the heckling begin.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCcp36n2cDg

Your topic is broad; but as a precursor, I have a bias, in that I'm a free speech absolutist.

There's a difference between having a meet-up or speech on campus on specialized topics and blocking all dissenting opinions because of feelings (not logic mind you.) Well before "safe spaces" were a thing, when I was in school, I could go to speeches that had minority opinions...no one ever disrespected the speakers; even if we had topic of disagreeing. I went to a viewing of a trans documentary, there was no "safe space," there was a good discussion afterwards. There was no need for a "safe space," because we were all adults, we aren't children.

What you are essentially describing is a forum about specific topics. That's not a "safe space," it may have been one but that's not quite an accurate representation.

One example of a "safe space" gone wrong has been the banning of certain speakers (that were already booked) from speaking on campus, because it violated student's "safe space." This has happened to a number of people, including Bill Maher and Condoleezza Rice. If you can't listen to the views of those you disagree with, you are not going to be a tolerant person. It encourages uniformity of ideas, the opposite of what academic inquiry should be about.

Then, we have things like "free speech zones" on campus, designated areas on campus where you are allowed to speak freely, displaying free speech on other part of campus can get you expelled. (read more about these on thefire.org.)

Anyhow, here's an op-ed from Michael Bloomberg and Charles Koch (not example bed fellows) http://www.wsj.com/articles/why-free-speech-matters-on-campu...

I do really encourage you to read the thefire.org, campus practices on free speech are often awful. You can look up your own school on their site and view their score on free speech.