College campuses are doing little to quell the pervasiveness of the snowflake culture amongst young people, and are, in fact, cultivating it with the use of “safe spaces.” The latest example of this can be seen at Grand Valley State University in Michigan, where students are now being invited to report to the school’s bias response team if they feel “belittled, disrespected, or isolated based on their identity.”
“The university is committed to safeguarding individual’s constitutional rights to free speech and assembly and we are also committed to addressing incidents of bias that may negatively affect individuals and/or communities at the university,” it says on the school’s website.
The site claims that Grand Valley seeks to create an environment in which free speech is protected, but only to the extent that others are not offended by said speech. Once that occurs, First Amendment rights go out the window. “Grand Valley facilitates educational dialogue to ensure that individuals understand both their right to free expression within the community and the impact of their expression on individuals and/or the community,” it continues.
In the event that a student has been affected by another’s freedom of speech, the school will provide “support resources” to the reporting student. The Daily Wire believes this offering will invite students to exaggerate or outright make false claims of supposed incidents of bias in order to qualify for those services.
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Meanwhile, the school encourages other students to “confront bias whenever you hear, see, or experience it.” Examples of how to confront such bias include simply calling it out, supporting a person who is visibly upset by the bias, showing disapproval through body language, or by engaging in dialogue to address the bias.
Of course, one wonders how such a confrontation would work. Is it really a good idea to invite a student who has already been “triggered” to confront the person whom he believes is responsible? And if the confrontation escalates, who then is to be held responsible? Would the accused be blamed if the “victim” takes his or her anger a step too far? And above all, who gets to decide what is offensive enough to warrant a response? On what grounds?
Grand Valley’s bias response team is just the latest evidence of the profound role college campuses are playing in creating a generation of snowflakes who are incapable of engaging in healthy debate without being “triggered.” What’s more, schools seem less interested in creating so-called safe spaces to make all students feel safe and included and more interested in using those spaces to ostracize belief systems that conflict with those of the Left.
For example, the College Fix reports that some of the bias claims made to the bias response team at Grand Valley include accusations against a professor who dared to say that there were only two genders and refused to use alternative pronouns. “I don’t care what his personal feelings are about gender, but he has created an unwelcoming environment for students who don’t fit as male or female,” wrote the anonymous student in the complaint. “That’s not acceptable.”
Another report was made after another professor remarked that children should be raised by both a mother and a father. According to the complaint, the professor audaciously “verbally attacked the rights of same sex couples” when he observed that children thrive when they have parents of the opposite sex. That infraction resulted in the department chair having a “conversation” with the professor, according to the Fix.
A Grand Valley campus official admitted that most of the reports do not result in an investigation, but that they serve as a “mechanism for someone to report that they felt mistreated and, consequently, University offices work to address the needs of the affected individual.”
In other words, the bias response team is mainly just a sounding board for students to release their negative emotions. In the event that an injustice has been deemed to have taken place, an investigation is launched. Otherwise, the team is just there to allow crybabies to feel heard.
Critics have opined on the detrimental impact that college “safe spaces” such as the one Grand Valley seeks to create have had on students. While delivering remarks to Turning Point USA’s High School Leadership summit, Attorney General Jeff Sessions accused schools of cracking down on First Amendment rights and preventing “genuine debate” through their use of “safe spaces” and various therapeutic interventions such as animals and coloring books.
Sessions says schools are doing “everything they can to create a generation of sanctimonious, sensitive, supercilious snowflakes.” He called it a “disservice” to the students and nation alike, and the proof is in the pudding.
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