Ugh. "Does this harass the law?" doesn't really have the same effect. But maybe the students should go protest football announcers who use the word "penetrate."

I cannot believe that this trigger BS is actually gaining and holding traction. What a joke.

It strikes me that if someone is triggered so badly by legal terms and definitions, then that person should not be in law school and should furthermore be in therapy until such time that they can handle discussing rape law.

It's terrible that bad things like rape happen to people, but do they want the entire rest of their lives to be defined by that experience? Are they so damaged that they literally can't hear certain words in public without being completely undone?



I knew people in school who's parents had survived the Khmer Rouge. They had escaped hell on earth and built a new life in the US. I can't imagine them even understanding the victim mentality that is behind the concept of "triggering".

This is the end result of what happens when you decide that whoever is most offended is always in the right.

Columbia Law students were allowed to delay exams because they are traumatized by Ferguson and Eric Garner. An Oberlin student tried the same trick, and got the appropriate one-word professor response, 'no,' and then went a Facebook campaign to smear the professor.

http://reason.com/blog/2014/12/16/oberli…

Congratulations feminists, this is the future you chose. I hope you're all reeaaaallly proud of yourselves.

@6 thanks for the link. Kids try this shit every semester. If you need an extension it's time to act like an adult and go talk to your professor in person, most of them are human.
The professor's response was perfect.

@6
I'd like to read that article in Reason you cite.

But I am afraid that I would be reminded of a terrible experience I once had -- a person sitting across the table in cafe was reading "Reason" (in print) and I spilled coffee on myself in a very embarrassing spot.

So whenever I see or even hear of the magazine I get upset, as I am now.

"Reason" is -- no joke -- a trigger and I wish that all use of the term should be banned.

If you can't process the subject matter, then don't take the class. I get squeamish when I see other people's blood (though not my own), which is one of the many reasons I majored in engineering instead of medicine. Demanding that medical classes stop showing blood to accommodate my squeamishness would be the height of entitlement.

Law student here at the University of Texas.



In first-year criminal law, our professor randomly assigned 1/3 of the class each to the roles of prosecutor, defendant, and judge for those especially tough cases where jurisdictions differ on how to handle them. For the rape case, a very sensitive feminist woman was by chance assigned to the role of defense counsel for the rapist. It was incredible to watch. Her eyes welled up periodically, and (without realizing it) she would start nodding enthusiastically whenever I made arguments for the prosecution.



But damn if she didn't manage to make excellent legal arguments for the defense when the opportunity arose. It was an impressive show of strength and compartmentalization. I was genuinely surprised to see the reason she was able to muster for arguments that she clearly didn't agree with, especially from someone who was so sensitive.



If she can do it, anyone can. This nonsense has got to stop.

Okay, I agree with policies around triggering students in SOME cases. Like you shouldn't force a victim to watch a filmed violent traumatic rape scene for a grade- they should be allowed to leave the room for that 5 minutes. After all, what can possibly be learned from watching that when you've already lived it? Banning discussion of the matter, however, is another matter altogether. That actively prevents real learning from occurring, and in the macro view makes life harder for victims and survivors in the future.

I have to say *this* is stupid. In some professional fields you *will* be exposed to horrific, terrible things, and you *need* to be dealing with them on terms not of your own choosing.

On a related note, I think the "embattled" professors are missing a teachable moment about professionalism.

@7: I'm sure they are quite proud. The goal is for any man accused of rape to be considered guilty until proven innocent, and they are making great progress.

Q: Doesn't this mean we'll end up convicting more innocent men?

A: Oh no, the poor menz! Obviously, you're just another misogynistic, patriarchal MRA.

I think we need to stop using the word "trigger", as it's a trigger word because gun violence.

@7, Excuse me, I don't think this is a feminist issue. It seem to me to rather be a helicopter parent/millennial issue where the last generation grew up expecting to never have their feelings hurt.

"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".

@17, feminists have been at the forefront of pushing this trigger nonsense in schools for ages. The abuse of the term for what used to refer specifically to the onset of acute trauma and flashbacks in PTSD survivors first began in online feminist spaces that quickly expanded the use of "triggered" to mean almost any state of anxiety or discomfort. They turned it into a mockery and now they are further diluting the legitimacy of universities by brow-beating them into capitulation to their whims under the auspices of caring for women.

Of course like many of their actions (Shirtgate anyone?), this will only serve to harm women in the long term and cause further tension between students and professors, and men and women.

@18, piffle. I'm sure we will see an internet mob of helicopter parents, not feminists, smearing Jeannie Suk's name because of this piece. Any minute now...

Wha' duh fuck?

The whole 'trigger' thing is an interesting conflation of power and weakness. The word 'trigger' suggests a gun or a bomb - weapons of deadly violence - and yet the word is associated with the victim of violence, not the perpetrator. It seems like it might be (in a kind of Jungian social-unconscious sense) a rhetorical method of reclaiming power for the (supposed) victims. But to me it just makes them sound twitchy. Plus, it doesn't empower at all - rather, it seems like a sort of fetishization of vulnerablility. Which is something many girls do on their way to adulthood, but they really should have outgrown that by college.

No one should ever allow anyone to mention -- in public or where listener might hear -- anything which might be upsetting. Blacks should not have to hear the word "ly--ch", Italians, "Maf-a", WASPs, "imm---ants" and so on. Everyone of those words might trigger some long-forgotten trauma. The ultimate answer? Silence.

I wonder how the anti-Savage sites will spin this one. Ms Cute, any ideas?

I'm a college prof. I don't do trigger warnings. College, for better or worse, is increasingly focused on professionalism and preparing students for the workforce. I wouldn't be fulfilling the school's mission if I excused students from what they need to learn. That said, I do work with students to help them through difficult periods, just as some bosses occasionally need to do with employees in the workplace. But that's the exception, not the rule.

@11 If she had actually been sexually attacked in her past (what is it, 1/4 college women have?), do you think she should still be required to defend the rapist in class? Might explain the tears. "Extremely sensitive" people are often "extremely sensitive" for very good reason.

It should be taught, but you should be allowed to excuse yourself out of it. Being asked questions about rape, when you have recently been raped, on a final exam, isn't fair. And you shouldn't have to go to your prof and say, hey, I've been raped, to get out of taking that part of the test. It's not their damn business.

If there are law students that won't pay attention to rape law because they won't be tested on it, well hope to God they don't end up working on those cases, because they shouldn't be practicing law. Or even be considered human, really.

#23. "Dan Savage doesn't care about rape victims."

I don't know what the hell kind of feminists you lot are bleating about. I'm a feminist, and I think people need to own their own shit. If you're going to law school and you "opt-out" of rape law classes, then you're a dumbfuck.

I'm with you, @28. I'm a feminist and a rape and sexual assault survivor, and I find this entire thing preposterous. I'm beginning to feel like people need a trigger warning for life itself these days. If the subject of rape law is that upsetting to you as a rape survivor, then you need to excuse yourself from school for awhile and get yourself into some counseling. Or find a new area of study entirely, while also getting yourself into some counseling.

People need to learn how to better say no to activists. Just because loud people demand you do something, doesn't mean you have to listen, or even respond.

Trigger warnings as a way of ensuring a safe space in an online community designed for that purpose? Yes. Sure.

Elsewhere? Not sold. It seems like a lot of people allegedly being protected are saying they can handle it, or that they are better for confronting their fears. I don't think it's appropriate to change a curriculum because of it. If you have a problem with something in a class, you should be able to talk to the professor about it, and if you can't, you should just ask for an incomplete, or drop, until you can handle it.

What a load of .. Of course people are traumatized by being abused. Surely though, just seeing a Man ( if a Man was the perpetrator), - might be a trigger. What, we now have to eradicate all Men?
Come to think of it.. Just a joke joyce.
Not that dealing with trauma is a joke. Dealing with it this way- is ridiculous.

In my opinion, if someone is in such fragile psychological condition that they can't cope with hearing the word "violate" or similar, they should be getting more therapy, not taking classes. I'm one hundred percent serious about this, and I speak as someone who had to take a leave of absence to deal with my own psychological issues. When I was so tangled in my anxiety that I could barely go out in sunlight, I wasn't in any shape to attend classes. I took a quarter off, focused on my therapy and getting properly medicated, and finished my degree once I was better. I did NOT go to the Dean and demand that classes be held at night to accommodate me.

The point of therapy is to prepare us for a world outside our little hugbox bubble, a world which may have disturbing elements, whether they be hints of sexual aggression (in the case of a rape victim) or garish and chaotic visual stimuli (in my own case), with which we will have to cope. It's not only unreasonable to expect never to encounter them, but also unfeasible. So what do we do? We learn coping skills, ways to let the distress out of our systems. A trigger warning, beyond that attached to things like images of graphic violence that will upset just about anyone, is a tool used to protect someone who is still in the earlier stages of recovery. Until you can deal with things just like everyone else, your attacker or your illness or whatever still has power over you. A trigger warning is nothing more than training wheels for a big harsh world, and its purpose is to keep you upright long enough for you to learn to balance without them.

This is what happens when you give tumblrites and the Jezebel crowd influence over the direction of society. Feminism so totally hasn't jumped the shark right?

@7; What you on about? Feminism is not about being protected in cotton wool.
It is about finding our strength and courage to be " full" human beings.
Having said that, I've never been raped. I've never been sexually abused. A young woman, after such an experience- I can imagine would be very traumatized.
To try and make the world safe, by insisting certain words etc are not heard by oneself, isn't going to heal that trauma.
To label this whole situation a feminist induced issue is bull.. If the rapes didn't occur, there would be no need for these convoluted responses.

Watching liberalism eat itself is a fantastic scene.
Such progressive thought is all righteously good "sensitive" feely stuff --- until it turns on you. Then you're the asshole. But there's no one left to speak up, and the controllers have the run of things.

@25, as someone who has been raped, I don't think the idea of defending a rapist in a law school class exercise is beyond the pale. It actually sounds like a good exercise; no matter what may have happened to them in the past, any lawyer needs to understand and respect every defendant's right to good counsel, and mock courtroom exercises are a good way of teaching that. It sounds like the woman in @11's class did a good job of overcoming whatever discomfort she had, and it was probably a very good learning experience.

Obviously, any reasonable professor would excuse someone from an exercise like that. A student wouldn't need to offer specifics, just explain that it made them uncomfortable. But if you're going to go to fucking law school, learning the law should be a priority. If you're too fragile for your coursework, take some time off and get more therapy. Or just accept that something is going to be painful and get through it anyway. Letting triggers control your life is just plain stupid.

@33, very well said.

@14, what the professors are missing a moment to teach rape law, which law students should learn. It was one of the memorable moments of first-year law - really uncomfortable for everyone, but an attorney puts their personal views aside to represent a client properly. Our professor brought in another attorney so it was a woman and man teaching those couple classes. It's an important subject, and not learning it is a mistake in my view.

@36, Oh holy mother of god do you suck. There's no liberal cannibalism happening here, just some discussion.

Quoth @38:

@14, what the professors are missing a moment to teach rape law, which law students should learn. It was one of the memorable moments of first-year law - really uncomfortable for everyone, but an attorney puts their personal views aside to represent a client properly. Our professor brought in another attorney so it was a woman and man teaching those couple classes. It's an important subject, and not learning it is a mistake in my view.

So you... agree with me?

I still remember a horribly triggering experience I had in a class way back in secondary school. My history teacher was one of those unrestrained ramblers, and one morning he decided to wander off-syllabus and deliver a lengthy monologue on the topic of funeral rites. I was 12 years old, and my mother had died suddenly three months beforehand. I still regret not walking out of that room - it felt like something I could not do, on many levels. I didn't think I was 'allowed' to make that experience end, and I think I was in too much pain to move.

Rape is a much more private trauma than bereavement; that may be why we have this convention of trigger warnings, because without them there's even less space to stand up and walk out of a room because you are trying to work through the aftermath of trauma and cannot turn what you're hearing into an educational experience right now because you are in too much fucking pain to think. However, I think 'trigger warnings' in areas of public life like education (or the workplace, or indeed the internet) are incredibly misleading, hence the scare quotes - these are not the closed, controlled, therapeutic spaces for which the term was coined. If you've ever made use of a real therapeutic safe space - offline or online - this is obvious. Communication in a safe space is highly controlled; trigger warnings are a part of that control, because it's understood that in that space, providing care to the participants is THE overriding purpose of communication. Outside therapeutic spaces, we have many other reasons to communicate, such as self-expression, education, commerce, accessing our legal rights, etc. Trigger warnings cannot work in such environments and instituting ad hoc, patchy attempts to apply them is misleading and pointless.

I am very sympathetic for the need to make more space for human beings to get over trauma while still living their lives, but trying to turn public life into a controlled therapeutic space is not the way to go.

Sorry, I read the New Yorker piece, and it reads like a Stephen Glass article. The author is using anecdotal evidence - how about we name the professors who refuse to teach law at Harvard law school? The whole article is meant to smear feminists - to spur conversations just like this one where everyone rolls their eyes at how ridiculous people can be - and contains no real information.

Anyone who seriously believes in the principle of triggering should not be studying law, period. Vast swaths of the law concern themselves with the most hideous transgressions imaginable. Rape, murder, violence domestic and otherwise, incest, robbery, mayhem, harassment, trafficking, the list stretches to the moon. If your delicate little psyche needs to have people not talk about all of these subjects for fear of setting you off, you are not prepared to be a participant in a system whose primary purpose is to deal with what happens when one person is bad to another person.

@28: "I don't know what the hell kind of feminists you lot are bleating about."

If you are trying to imply that this is not in fact feminist doctrine, you are not as thoroughly informed as you would like to think.

43 - You are badly misunderstanding the way trigger warnings are used. Rather than 'to have people not talk about all of these subjects', the convention of trigger warnings exists to facilitate conversations about these subjects. You just have to tell people in advance what they're going to be hearing about, so the listeners can a) benefit from being forewarned, which often makes it easier to handle, and b) if there's something they really think they CAN'T handle right now, they can leave without obstructing anyone else's conversation.

It's about informed consent. Part of the problem highlighted above is that you can't give informed consent to an exam question, which is the kind of reason trigger warnings are ineffective in most situations.

"Victims of sexual assault actually need lawyers, prosecutors, and judges who are familiar with the relevant law." Absolutely. And they are not getting that in law school, because that's not what law school is really about.

Law school isn't really about teaching you the relevant law of your jurisdiction. It's about teaching you how to analyze and "think" like a lawyer. In practice, you are constantly researching and looking things up. You're not relying on whatever it is you learned in law school, which is often a mishmash of general principles that may not even be the law in your state. Hell, the bar exam might not even test you on the relevant law of your jurisdiction.

When I was in law school, we did cover rape law in my criminal law class. The content that was most likely to be "triggering" was not the topic per se or even the cases, but the ignorant and insensitive comments about rape and consent made by some of the male students during class. Afterwards, I reminded one of them that, based on statistics, there was probably more than one rape survivor sitting in that class, listening to those comments. "Oh, I never thought of that," he said. I think that emphasizes the importance of covering this material, but covering it in a thoughtful way.

@25: No, I don't think she should be required. I'm just saying I don't think the issue should be avoided altogether for the whole class.

The random assignments, and the case in question, were told to us in advance. If she had wanted to be personally excused, she had the opportunity to ask the professor, and I don't doubt he would have honored such a request. It was her decision to go through with it.

It's worth noting that the statistic for "1 in 5 college women have been raped" is based on a voluntary response sample. The outcome of the survey was something like 1% reported having been raped, 4% reported not having been raped, and 95% didn't respond at all. It's problematic, to say the least, to assume that the 5% who responded are representative of the entire study group.

I'll also note that sometimes triggers are not rooted in personal experience. It's difficult to determine why certain nerves seem more raw than others. For instance, the concept of bulimia is extremely disturbing to me. I've never been bulimic or personally known anyone who was (that I know of), but just reading about bulimia makes my heart pound and gives me vertigo. I don't know why, but it's just the way I'm wired.

@45: You are badly misunderstanding the way trigger warnings are being used. They are not working the way you imagine they would work in an ideal world; read the article. The whole point of it is that they're being used to shut down education.

You might be right about why they exist, but you're dead wrong about how they're being used. Leaving without obstructing anyone's conversation is the opposite of what "triggered" students are doing. As you know, since you did read the article, right?

Of all the places to find the "blame the feminists! They're ruining everything!" attitude, Slog is definitely one of the last places I would have expected.

I'm disappointed in some of you. Are y'all sure you are *actually* fans of Dan Savage?

@44 - I don't follow 'doctrine'. I'm not the sort to follow blindly, or bend under peer pressure. My group of friends all define themselves as feminists, and we all agree that this sort of pandering is complete bullshit.

It's a shame for people who have memories that are so traumatic that they can't bear to even have their trauma referenced obliquely; but, like personal pronouns, is much more frequently used by attention-seekers rather than the people it was meant to protect/serve.

@39 No. There is no discussion here. One side has determined that there are/aren't appropriate topics, language and tone. And the other side has to agree or be labeled insensitive for violating the "rights" of the other. In its advanced stages, the codification and regulation of "liberal" speech (now relegated to zones on many campuses, requiring advanced notices and permits) becomes criminally prosecuted. (Today's news)

http://www.wsj.com/articles/dutch-far-ri…

Im not condoning what he said, but gradually liberalism becomes "aliberal" – as the objective is to subvert individualism in favor of collectivism, and standardize thought.

Welcome to your Animal Farm. Ever notice Napoleon the Pig killed by tearing out throats?

“Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this. The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from the oligarchies of the past in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just around the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know what no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now you begin to understand me.”
― George Orwell

@52 Oh yeah, several law school teachers not making rape and sexual violence part of their first-year curriculum is exactly like a leninist/stalinist revolution, dictatorship, and massacre. Sheesh.

I think this level of sensitivity is a little over the top, but it's hardly a big deal. Law school is about learning how to research, understand, and apply the law, and learning fundamental legal concepts. Frankly, that can be done with no mention of rape whatsoever, unless a student wishes to seek out the subject as an elective. Some professors teaching the mandatory (usually first year) crim-law class will decide that dealing extensively with rape is not worth the trouble or potential unfairness to rape survivors, and some will decide that rape laws are a necessary part of their introductory curriculum. Life and freedom of speech will go on.

@53

I'm not saying one case makes a revolution. I was citing @39s lack of understanding of the constellation of events happening around her, as Orwellian "Newspeak" and and "Doublethink" prevail, and not recognize the tyranny unfolding.

Newspeak: Job-creators. Revenue Enhancements. Debt Ceiling. Quantitative Easing. Enhanced Interrogation.

Doublethink: Free Speech Zones. Affordable Care Act.

But of course she doesn't see it.

There's an adage that the moment Adolf Hitler is cited, it means the argument is baseless. But perhaps, instead that counter is a device of the defenseless to ignore the obvious trends in history:

“The best way to take control over a people and control them utterly is to take a little of their freedom at a time, to erode rights by a thousand tiny and almost imperceptible reductions. In this way, the people will not see those rights and freedoms being removed until past the point at which these changes cannot be reversed.” – Mein Kampf, Adolf Hilter

@54 But there's no loss of freedom here at all. Some students are exercising their freedom to complain about something and to choose not to participate. Some professors are exercising their freedom to decide that these complaints may be valid and are adjusting accordingly. Other professors may be exercising their freedom to accede to demands that they find unreasonable to avoid a headache. Doubtless, some professors are exercising their freedom to decide that these complaints are stupid and continue to teach and test on rape laws. This isn't tyranny, it's just intersecting freedoms negotiating with one another.

"And this is a problem because… victims of sexual assault actually need lawyers, prosecutors, and judges who are familiar with the relevant law."

not when the alleged perp is guilty until proven innocent.

was there a trigger warning the senate intelligence committees report on the cia tortures?

@55

If dozens of teachers are avoiding topics because "it's not worth the risk of offending" people – see above – THAT is a loss of freedom.

@57: No, it's not. It's the free market in action. People don't want to buy teaching services that mention rape? They're voting with their dollar, and the teaching market responds.
I'm not saying its a good thing, but then again I'm not a Libertarian moron.

@58 the professors probably don't want a rolling stone article written about them and being vandalized by the sensitive and equality loving progressives

@58: This kind of social pressure is hardly "the free market." In a free market, if a minority who doesn't like the way things are being done by the majority in a certain industry, they can go create their own cottage industry to compete with the main industry and cater to a target demographic of those with similar tastes. If their way of doing things is truly better and more well-liked, they may out-compete the old way. If they're truly a niche market, they persist as one. If they're crap, they fail. This is not competition by offering an alternative, it's a vocal minority stong-arming the majority with threats.

@60: Shh, I'm tweaking brittle people.

@57 goddamn, you are immune to logic and sense. People making decisions about what is or is not worth the risk of offending certain other people is not a loss of freedom.

@62 Pemulis you tiresome Orwellian waste of skin. The very fact that people consider speech to have "risk" ("an exposure to danger") with consequence from institionalized thinking is by it nature a reduction of freedom.

Yeah yeah the evil feminists are destroying the world. And the vegetarians. And blacks and jews and mexicans. Better 'protect' yourselves.

@49 "Of all the places to find the "blame the feminists! They're ruining everything!" attitude, Slog is definitely one of the last places I would have expected.

I'm disappointed in some of you. Are y'all sure you are *actually* fans of Dan Savage? "

Dan does publish a disturbing amount of material about false rape accusations and extreme/crazy feminists. I think he likes to watch the gender wars in the comments myself.

Avast;don't know what has happened to my
Copy of (The )Feminist Doctrine Manifesto
( FDM), I ordered it weeks ago. Maybe you could just forward your copy to me, please?

I'm with #28 & #29.

@63: When you make an investment in a company, you assume a certain amount of financial risk, because the company might go under and you might lose your money. According to you, we're all losing our freedom because it's possible to lose value on your investment. Reality and economics are a loss of freedom! Free markets aren't free! Ron Paul! It's happening!!!
You're fucking nuts, brah. Madder than a ferret sausage.

This is not only a bad way to teach, it's also a bad way to treat PTSD. People who defend excessive trigger warnings will argue it's a reasonable accommodation for PTSD, but it is not. It's in the best interests of people with PTSD to overcome their traumas, not to merely avoid them. These students should be referred to a therapist.