The influence of the “trigger
warnings” movement is now so pervasive that many law professors
can’t even teach a class on a delicate subject without facing an
onslaught of requests from students for feelings accommodation.
Harvard Law School Professor Jeannie Suk
sheds light on the difficulty of teaching students about rape
law when the forecast for campus is always persistent
offendedness:
Students seem more anxious about classroom discussion, and about
approaching the law of sexual violence in particular, than they
have ever been in my eight years as a law professor. Student
organizations representing women’s interests now routinely advise
students that they should not feel pressured to attend or
participate in class sessions that focus on the law of sexual
violence, and which might therefore be traumatic. These
organizations also ask criminal-law teachers to warn their classes
that the rape-law unit might “trigger” traumatic memories.
Individual students often ask teachers not to include the law of
rape on exams for fear that the material would cause them to
perform less well. One teacher I know was recently asked by a
student not to use the word “violate” in class—as in “Does this
conduct violate the law?”—because the word was triggering. Some
students have even suggested that rape law should not be taught
because of its potential to cause distress.
Suk—who is one of the signatories on
this statement of opposition to Harvard’s illiberal sexual
assault policy—goes on to note that the very real, terrible
consequence of not teaching rape law will be the proliferation of
lawyers ill-equipped to deal with such matters. Victims of sexual
assault deserve competent legal representation; the legal system
needs prosecutors, defense attorneys, and judges who have
vigorously studied the nuances of rape adjudication. Social
progress on all these fronts will be rolled back if law professors
stop educating students about rape. That would be a travesty of
justice.
It’s time to admit that appeasing students’ seemingly unlimited
senses of personal victimhood entitlement, unenlightened views
about public discourse, and thinly-veiled laziness is not merely
wrong, but actively dangerous. Colleges are supposed to prepare
young people to succeed in the real world; they do students no
favors by infantilizing them. But worse than that, by bending over
backwards to satisfy the illiberal mob, colleges are doling out
diplomas to people who are prepared for neither real life nor their
eventual professions. Should medical colleges abdicate their
responsibility to instruct students on how to administer a rape kit
to a victim, or ask a victim difficult questions about her trauma,
because that discussion is triggering to some of the
students?
It would be better for professors to instruct students on how to
confront their uncomfortable emotions and grow beyond them, but
alas, that seems less and less common.
Related: College is bumper
bowling, degrees are participant
ribbons, etc.
Hat tip:
Daily Caller News Foundation
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