While <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/colleges" target="_blank" rel="noopener">college</a> campuses are obsessing over &#8220;<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/safe-spaces" target="_blank" rel="noopener">safe spaces</a>&#8221; and diversity, equity, and inclusion, one <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/professor" target="_blank" rel="noopener">professor</a> noticed that students are becoming less happy and much angrier.
Mary Gaitskill, a novelist who teaches creative writing courses as a visiting professor at several universities, made the observations in an article for the <a href="https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-trials-of-the-young?utm_source=Iterable&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=campaign_6350713_nl_Academe-Today_date_20230309&amp;cid=at&amp;source=&amp;sourceid=&amp;cid2=gen_login_refresh&amp;cid2=gen_login_refresh" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Chronicle of Higher Education</a>. Gaitskill said that despite constant efforts to make campuses &#8220;safe,&#8221; students in her classes, especially white males, are writing violent and degenerate fantasies, and many students have spent time in mental institutions.
&#8220;Anyone who isn’t living in off-grid isolation is aware of the tireless efforts by hyperconscious campus administrations to create classrooms where everyone feels safe and as few people as possible will be made &#8216;uncomfortable,&#8217; let alone unhappy,&#8221; Gaitskill wrote, citing &#8220;trigger warnings&#8221; and training modules about rape and sexual harassment as examples. The college she wrote about doubled down on these practices: including fewer white male authors on syllabi, more training modules, more anti-racist teacher trainings, and more language rules.
Most people, even those affected by real incidents of hate and discrimination, &#8220;might fairly mock the corrective apparatus&#8221; as &#8220;ridiculous&#8221; or &#8220;dictatorial,&#8221; Gaitskill added. &#8220;The deeper trouble is that it is ineffectual and confusing.&#8221; She pointed to an instance where a white male student used the phrase &#8220;toxic masculinity&#8221; without knowing what it meant; the student told her that he learned it at freshman orientation, and to him &#8220;it meant entitled men treating women badly.&#8221; This student did not take issue with the idea of &#8220;toxic masculinity.&#8221; But &#8220;less confident, less sophisticated young men — those with the most vulnerable self-esteem — might find it disconcerting to be told, no matter how sensitively it was put, that the trait that they have grown up considering desirable, their most basic default identity, is now toxic,&#8221; she wrote. &#8220;This does not seem to me a minor side effect.&#8221;
Gaitskill then recounted the stories of several students in her class. One student, Luke, approached her for permission to write a story about violent rape, murder, and necrophilia, in the first person. She rejected the idea because such horrific material would get administration involved, and she didn&#8217;t want that. But moreover, she told the student that it was hard to empathize with such violent individuals. “You’re completely wrong,” the student replied. “They do understand why they do it.” 
That student eventually wrote a story with graphic depictions of self-harm. Another student wrote an account of an attempted suicide that turned out to be autobiographical. In all, four of the eight students in her class wrote about suicide: two wrote about their own suicide attempts; two wrote about friends, one of whom died; one was written by a girl who had known four people in her home town who had attempted or committed suicide, and she was trying to understand them. In all cases, Gaitskill recounted that the stories were filled with despair, either directed at a particular social issue, or simply personal, but &#8220;vivid&#8221; and &#8220;intense.&#8221;
Gaitskill talked with a counselor who had been working with Luke. During their conversation, the counselor said that &#8220;mental-health issues were &#8216;through the roof,&#8217; that a number of students had already been sent home in that calendar year to receive care; in some cases, their parents had to be persuaded to accept them back.&#8221; The counselor also said that mental health had been declining for years. Gaitskill then provided a disturbing email Luke had sent to her. The counselor said the email wasn&#8217;t enough to act on. So Gaitskill offered to forward her the email. The counselor said no, “[b]ecause if I see it, I’ll have to do something.”
Gaitskill concluded that the students feel this way because they are constantly exposed to large-scale social issues, such as mass shootings, climate change, police brutality, disinformation, and others. Instead, they are looking for a sense of safety by fixating on problems they can control, such as offensive words, gender ideology, and toxic masculinity, even though the apparatus built around solving those problems offers no safety. &#8220;The only thing I can say for sure is that the young deserve better,&#8221; she wrote.
The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is a free hotline for individuals in crisis or distress or for those looking to help someone else. It is available 24/7 at 1-800-273-8255.

College students walking on campus, rear view – stock photo

College Professor: Despite Campus Obsession With ‘Safe Spaces,’ Students Are Writing About Violent Fantasies, Suicide

College Professor: While Campuses Are Obsessed With 'Safe Spaces,’ Students Are Writing About Violence, Suicide

Education

Mental Health

Professors

Safe Spaces

Students

Suicide

U.S.

Violence

Some Ohio parents have expressed their anger that their local school district permits teachers to wear a “safe space” badge with a QR code that when scanned, leads to websites containing sexually explicit content.
“Teachers K through 12 can wear the badge that says, ‘I’m here. Safe person, safe space.’ The district says the message of the badge is a message of safety and inclusion for all students,” veteran Emmy Award-winning reporter Lu Ann Stoia of ABC 6 Columbus reported.
The superintendent of the Hilliard school district responded to ABC 6’s inquiries with a statement saying, “Teachers were reminded that the resources linked to the QR code were for adult learning only. Teachers were reminded that if asked about the ‘I’m Here’ message on the badge, their response should be age appropriate.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
.<a href="https://twitter.com/HilliardSchools?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@HilliardSchools</a> allows teachers to wear a “safe space” badge with a QR code. When scanned, the code leads to inappropriate websites containing sexually explicit content. 
The superintendent continues to allow the badges to be worn in school. <a href="https://t.co/0cQc0yGVWq">pic.twitter.com/0cQc0yGVWq</a>
&mdash; Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) <a href="https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1572640729977200641?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 21, 2022</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Some of the parents in the district may sue the district because they argue the district is not being transparent about gender and sex-related conversations their children may be having with school staff, the Ohio Press Network <a href="https://www.theohiopressnetwork.com/news/ohio/special-report-hilliard-parents-threaten-district-with-federal-lawsuit-after-school-says-it-may-hide/article_b82ef404-3993-11ed-9fd3-f719c77cdf17.html">reported</a>.
In July, some of the parents confronted Stewart about Title IX changes; Stewart reputedly argued that if a teacher were to “out a kid” to their parents, the teacher would face a potential risk.
Columbus attorney Joshua Brown, who represents over 30 parents in the district, sent letters to the school legal counsel, as well as a letter to district Superintendent Dave Stewart giving the district until September 15 to answer the parents’ questions or a lawsuit would be filed.
In the letter to Stewart, Brown asked if the school would “require school officials to notify parents when their child manifests symptoms of gender dysphoria (or symptoms of anything else) at school, and what specific exceptions may apply.”
The district’s law firm <a href="https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/theohiopressnetwork.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/6/52/6528df06-3996-11ed-9e2f-cfed5e575769/632ae4be48c6e.pdf.pdf">replied</a> on September 14, the last day before the parents had said they would sue. They wrote, “Without going back and forth about who can assess ‘symptoms,’ and what that undefined term may mean to you or the parents you represent, it appears your question is really – if a student identifies at school as a gender different than their birth gender, will the school discuss this with the parents? The answer is ‘probably.’”
The letter added, “While parents generally have rights regarding the upbringing of their children, schools and educators have an obligation to act in the student’s best interest when the student is at school.”

Safe space for LGBTQ community, a rainbow umbrellas pattern

School District Lets Teachers Wear ‘Safe Space’ Badge Leading To Sexually Explicit Content

Ohio

school district

sexual content

In an exclusive report out Sunday, <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/national-archives-rotunda-structural-racism">Fox News noted that a “little noticed</a>” report from a National Archives task force on racism suggested the building, where America’s founding documents are displayed, was an example of “structural racism” and suggested major changes to how the Constitution and other notable records are presented in order to provide “context.”
The group also reportedly suggested that the National Archive&#8217;s portrayal of individual founding fathers was too positive.
The group, Fox News said Sunday, “claimed in a little-noticed report to the U.S.’s top librarian that the Archives&#8217; own Rotunda – which houses the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights – is an example of ‘structural racism’ and that the Founding Fathers and other White, historically impactful Americans are portrayed too positively.”
The task force, which completed its work in April, noted that “structural racism&#8221; included &#8220;legacy descriptions that use racial slurs and harmful language to describe BIPOC communities,&#8221; like racial slurs but also terms like &#8220;elderly,&#8221; &#8220;handicapped&#8221; and &#8220;illegal alien.&#8221;
The National Archives rotunda fell under serious scrutiny because its frescoes and displays laud the achievements of “wealthy White men in the nation&#8217;s founding while marginalizing BIPOC [Black, Indigenous and other People of Color], women, and other communities.&#8221;
They suggested that the National Archives engage in activities that could provide “context” to the rotunda and documents through “dance or performance art in the space that invites dialogue about the ways that the United States has mythologized the founding era.&#8221;
As for the documents and displays, the committee suggested “trigger warnings” for individuals who might suffer “physiological and psychological symptoms” as a result of coming into contact with the information and artwork in the rotunda.
“Providing an advisory notice to users gives us an opportunity to mitigate harm and contextualize the records,&#8221; the report said, per Fox. &#8220;It creates a space to share with the public our ultimate goals for reparative description, demonstrate our commitment to the process, and address any barriers that we may face in achieving these goals (i.e., the size and scope of the Catalog and the ever-evolving knowledge we gain regarding what is harmful).&#8221;
The committee also suggested the National Archives add “safe spaces” where visitors having difficulties could take a time out and process the information.
As for the founders, the committee had ideas about how to contextualize Revolutionary War heroes, including the author of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson.
According to the report:
<blockquote>OurDocuments.gov features transcripts and historical context of ‘100 milestone documents of American history’ but often uses adulatory and excessive language to document the historical contributions of White, wealthy men.
For example, a search of Thomas Jefferson in OurDocuments.gov brings up 24 results. He is described in this sample lesson plan as a ‘visionary’ who took ‘vigorous action’ to strengthen the ‘will of the nation to expand westward.
The plan does not mention that his policy of westward expansion forced Native Americans off their ancestral land, encouraged ongoing colonial violence, and laid the groundwork for further atrocities like the Trail of Tears.</blockquote>
The National Archives’ director commissioned the report last year following George Floyd’s death. It is not clear whether the National Archives have a plan to follow up on the committee’s recommendations.

Carol M. Highsmith/Buyenlarge/Getty Images

National Archives Task Force Says America’s Founding Documents Show ‘Systemic Racism,’ Suggests Trigger Warnings, Dance Performances

Racism

Nineteen black families pooled their resources to purchase 97 acres of land in eastern Georgia to create what they hope to be a “safe space” for black families.
Real Estate agent Ashley Scott purchased the land with the family, <a href="https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/09/12/us/freedom-black-cooperative-toomsboro/index.html">declaring</a> to CNN “Welcome to Freedom” as she stood upon the land she co-owns. &#8220;I&#8217;m hoping that it will be a thriving safe haven for people of color, for Black families in particular,&#8221; she told the news outlet.
The land purchased by the families is east of Macon, Georgia, in Wilkinson County. Scott and her friend Renee Walters, an investor and entrepreneur, wanted to create a safe space for black families but weren’t planning to buy land to make that dream a reality.
&#8220;Being able to create a community that is thriving, that is safe, that has agriculture and commercial businesses that are supporting one another and that dollars circulating in our community, that is our vision,&#8221; Scott told CNN.
Scott said the idea came after protests and riots broke out across the United States following the police-involved deaths of George Floyd in Minneapolis and Breonna Taylor in Louisville. Ahmaud Arbery’s death at the hands of residents in Brunswick, Georgia, also inspired their purchase.
George Floyd died after police officer Derek Chauvin held his knee to Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes while Floyd said he couldn’t breathe. Breonna Taylor was killed when police executed a no-knock warrant to search her apartment for drugs. Taylor was not the subject of the search, but a man she had dated occasionally (but recently stopped seeing) was suspected of using her apartment to receive packages. Taylor and her new boyfriend were fearful the person trying to break in was her ex-boyfriend, so her boyfriend fired his gun, hitting a police sergeant. The police opened fire and Taylor was killed.
Ahmaud Arbery was killed by Gregory McMichael and his son Travis, who claim they thought Arbery was a robbery suspect. Arbery’s family said he was jogging when he was killed during a confrontation with the McMichael’s.
These and other instances of people of color dying at the hands of white people and police sparked outrage across the country, with protests popping up in major cities, many of which led to deadly riots that destroyed businesses.
&#8220;Watching our people protesting in the streets, while it is important, and I want people to stay out in the streets, bringing attention to the injustices of Black people. We needed to create a space and a place where we could be a village, again, a tribe, again,&#8221; Scott told CNN.
Walters saw an ad online offering to sell the town of Toomsboro for $1.7 million.
&#8220;It is one of the few places where you can buy a whole town with every kind of building including a historic inn, a syrup mill, an opera house, a school house, a railroad depot, a cotton warehouse, a restaurant, a barbershop, a water wheel, a grist mill, a work shop, a filling station, and several houses,&#8221; the ad read, according to CNN.
The town wasn’t actually up for sale, Toomsboro Mayor Joyce Denson said, but Scott and Walters found 90-plus acres for sale outside of town in unincorporated Wilkinson County, CNN reported.
&#8220;It was just such a beautiful piece of land. It was affordable, and it just made sense that we could create something that would be amazing for our families,&#8221; Scott told the outlet.
They purchased the land and are planning to develop it in phases:
<blockquote>At a ribbon-cutting ceremony, Scott said while they didn&#8217;t know the exact history of their plot of land, the symbolism of reclaiming this land gives them an opportunity to write their own story.
They hope to grow within a few years. By the end of their development plan, they hope to have a fully operational, self-sufficient city &#8212; putting Freedom, Georgia, on the map.
&#8220;To be able to pass this land down to my children and to the children that are represented by each of our 19 families. As a piece of legacy. We&#8217;re hoping to create legacy.&#8221;</blockquote>

Blue candy with colorful red chocolates

Black Families Buy 97 Acres In Georgia To Build ‘Safe Haven For People Of Color’

George Floyd

Georgia

Segregation

Is it important to have racial or sexual diversity in our fight against the COVID-19 pandemic? Heather Mac Donald suggests that some think it might be in her City Journal article &#8220;Should Identity Politics Dictate Vaccine Research?&#8221;
The funding priorities of the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control suggests that they think diversity is an important input in making headway in the fight against the coronavirus. On April 20, NIH and CDC announced the availability of grants to increase the &#8220;diversity&#8221; of biomedical research labs. For example, academic virology researchers studying respiratory failure could receive hundreds of thousands more taxpayer dollars if they could find a woman or a minority to add to their project. High school students and college students are eligible for the program even though they cannot contribute anything of value. No scientific justification for the new diversity hire is needed. The scientists must promise to mentor the new hire, which will take time away from their research with no offsetting gain.
Mac Donald has written another article on academic insanity &#8220;The Therapeutic Campus&#8221; bearing the subtitle: &#8220;Why are college students seeking mental-health services in record numbers?&#8221; Many colleges have created safe spaces where students can be sheltered from reality and not have their feelings hurt by others exercising their free speech rights. Yale University has created a safe space that would be the envy of most other universities. They have named it the Good Life Center. Mac Donald says it has &#8220;a sandbox, essential oils, massage, and mental-health workshops,&#8221; and that &#8220;the center unites the most powerful forces in higher education today: the feminization of the university, therapeutic culture, identity politics, and the vast student-services bureaucracy.&#8221;
George Mason University has a Center for the Advancement of Well-Being, headed by a chief well-being officer. At George Mason, well-being refers to social justice and &#8220;building a life of vitality, purpose, resilience, and engagement,&#8221; the Center&#8217;s chief well-being officer told The Chronicle of Higher Education. By the way, a George Mason University student can minor in well-being as a part of his college education.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, in justifying his draconian coronavirus measures, said during a press conference: &#8220;This is about saving lives. If everything we do saves just one life, I&#8217;ll be happy.&#8221;
Cuomo knows that many Americans buy into such a seemingly caring statement that would be easily revealed as utter nonsense if one had just a modicum of economic knowledge. If one looked at only the benefits of an action, he would do anything because everything has a benefit. Prudent decision-making requires one to compare benefits to costs. For example, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that in 2019 36,120 people died in motor vehicle traffic crashes. Virtually all those lives could have been saved with a mandated 5 mph speed limit. Those saved lives are the benefit. Fortunately, when we consider the costs and inconvenience of setting a 5 mph speed limit, we rightly conclude that saving those 36,120 lives isn&#8217;t worth it.
There are other news tidbits about politicians drunk with power that we Americans have given them. Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot told city residents who disobeyed her stay-at-home order: &#8220;We will arrest you and we will take you to jail. Period. We&#8217;re not playing games.&#8221; Meanwhile, in violation of her own stay-at-home order, Lightfoot slipped out and got her hair done. She explained her decision, &#8220;I take my personal hygiene very seriously.&#8221;
Ventura County, California, health director Dr. Robert Levin said that his department would forcibly remove COVID-19 infected people from their own homes and put them &#8220;into other kinds of housing that we have available.&#8221; Facing stiff criticism, Levin later explained: &#8220;I either misspoke or it was misinterpreted. I&#8217;ll take the blame of having misspoke.&#8221;
The biggest casualty from the COVID-19 pandemic has nothing to do with the disease. It&#8217;s the power we&#8217;ve given to politicians and bureaucrats. The question is how we recover our freedoms.
Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University. To find out more about Walter E. Williams and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.

Coronavirus

WILLIAMS: Insane News Tidbits

Andrew Cuomo

COVID

A recent article in the Associated Press is now getting roundly mocked for featuring an etiquette expert who suggested that people hosting Thanksgiving provide an actual safe space for people to discuss the current political issues.
The article by Dan Sewell, titled &#8220;<a href="https://apnews.com/deb5250314a44feea5aaa36150b479fe?utm_source=Twitter&amp;utm_campaign=SocialFlow&amp;utm_medium=APEastRegion&amp;utm_medium=AP&amp;utm_source=Twitter&amp;utm_campaign=SocialFlow">On the Thanksgiving menu: Turkey, with a side of impeachment</a>,” argued that politics are just too polarizing in today&#8217;s America and will surely be a topic around the dinner table come Thursday&#8217;s holiday. Rather than skirt the issue, Sewell suggests people should discuss politics both openly and safely. After quoting several individuals who fear how politics could cloud the day, Sewell employed Elaine Swann, &#8220;a Los Angeles-based etiquette coach,&#8221; who argued that hosts should sequester the debates to a segment of the house.
“I do think it’s healthy for people to express themselves and to have those conversations,” said Swann. “My advice is to take a route to allow some sort of platform, but with guidelines.”
Swann said she will have a room with snacks for people to debate politics and even suggested having a family member be the designated moderator. From the article:
<blockquote>
Swann, who will host around 30 people, said that if guests start tearing into one another like drumsticks, “make sure that in your arsenal as a host, you have some family-building activity to get everybody out of it.”
Games can be a good diversion or, Swann suggested, invite people to bring family photos to share that will stir warm memories.
The bottom line, Swann said, is cherishing the time together.
“Although we may not agree politically, the one thing we are is family,” she said. “The big takeaway that I encourage everyone to have is that love for family, because tomorrow is not promised to us, and you never know who is going to wake up the next day and who is not.”
</blockquote>
As noted by <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/media/ap-mocked-after-etiquette-coach-says-thanksgiving-hosts-should-offer-special-rooms-for-impeachment-talk-moderators">Fox News</a>, Swann&#8217;s suggestion for hosts to put up a safe space has been met with scorn and derision.
&#8220;Maybe just stop being a moron,&#8221; tweeted Lisa Boothe of Fox News.
&#8220;What the hell is wrong with people that they can no longer have ANY conversation for fear it MIGHT be an issue? Shove this PC crap where the sun doesn&#8217;t shine I&#8217;m sick of it,&#8221; said one Twitter user.
&#8220;That&#8217;s a terrible coach. Just be adults for one day and stop cheerleading for politicians,&#8221; said another user.
&#8220;Why do the press think all Americans are obsessed with this stuff? We just want our turkey and dressing! With a side of football,&#8221; said another.
On the positive side, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/studies-show-that-few-people-actually-fight-with-family-over-politics-on-thanksgiving">studies actually show</a> that few Americans engage in heated political discussions on Thanksgiving despite the hardcore Left&#8217;s push to make it a cultural trend.
“In reality, very few Americans actually fight about politics on Thanksgiving,” notes Abraham Gutman of <a href="https://www.inquirer.com/news/thanksgiving-dinner-politics-argue-science-20191123.html">The Philadelphia Inquirer</a>. “A 2017 HuffPost/YouGov survey found that only 3% of Americans said that they are ‘very likely,’ and 8% are &#8216;somewhat likely,&#8217; to get into a political argument with family members during Thanksgiving dinner. The result held at 3% for people who expected both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton supporters to attend the dinner, though 20% said they are ‘somewhat likely’ to argue.”

Thanksgiving Turkey And Child

Etiquette Expert Suggests Thanksgiving Hosts Offer A Safe Space To Discuss Politics, Gets Mocked Online

Thanksgiving

A new clip released from the Dennis Prager/Adam Carolla film &#8220;No Safe Spaces&#8221; highlights the magnitude of the fight for free speech on college campuses.
When Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro visited UC-Berkeley in 2017, the threats of violence from far-left protesters were so intense that the school spent over $600,000 in security services just so he could speak. The montage sequence featured in &#8220;No Safe Spaces&#8221; brings that harrowing reality closer to home, as Shapiro is shown traveling to campus amid interludes of riot police gearing up for his arrival.
&#8220;The University of California at Berkeley is said to be bracing, that&#8217;s the quote, bracing for conservative speaker Ben Shapiro&#8217;s upcoming appearance at their campus,&#8221; one reporter is heard saying in the clip.
&#8220;Many are comparing it to hurricane preparations,&#8221; says another reporter.
&#8220;A large swath of the campus will be closed off, including the plaza where the Free Speech Movement began in the 1960s,&#8221; says another.
At one point, the montage cuts to a clip of Harvard Law Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz on Fox News warning of the stakes at issue. &#8220;If Ben Shapiro is not allowed to speak, a tremendous battle will have been lost today — a very important event in the history of our rights,&#8221; Dershowitz says.
Berkeley students were seen chanting &#8220;Speech is violence!&#8221; upon Shapiro&#8217;s visit, suggesting that his disagreeing with their politics is an attack on their identity. Here&#8217;s what Shapiro <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/5-things-i-learned-berkeley-last-night-ben-shapiro">wrote</a> of the experience, at the time:
<blockquote>We&#8217;ve watched Antifa fight free speech in cities ranging from Portland to Seattle to Sacramento to Dallas to Berkeley. We&#8217;ve watched them get violent. But the biggest problem, by far, has been the unwillingness of local authorities to allow the police to do what they need to do. Last night, hundreds of police were brought in to protect our event, at a cost of $600,000. That&#8217;s because of Black Bloc and Antifa. But neither held sway, because the police quickly arrested anyone with a weapon or a mask, and prevented violence in the crowd outside. Good. Law and order is a precondition to civil society. It’s just sad so much law enforcement was necessary for a college speech.</blockquote>
Check out the clip below:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Ben Shapiro in No Safe Spaces" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/sibhctSqopM?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
The push to make &#8220;No Safe Spaces&#8221; a reality has been ongoing since 2017, when Dennis Prager and Adam Carolla started an Indiegogo campaign to crowdfund the documentary into motion. It <a href="https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/no-safe-spaces#/">raised $684,684</a>. Much of the documentary will focus on Prager and Carolla traveling to various college campuses, exploring the systematic crackdown on free speech.
&#8220;Entitled snowflakes on college campuses raging and screaming every time they encounter an idea they disagree with,&#8221; said the film’s Indiegogo page. &#8220;These stories might be somewhat amusing if they weren’t such a dangerous indication of what’s to come. Trigger warnings, micro-aggressions, the suppression of free speech, and other illogical ideas born on campuses are proliferating and spreading out into the real world.&#8221;
The film will go nationwide on November 15th. It has so far seen <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/pragers-no-safe-spaces-sees-impressive-sales-on-just-one-screen">promising sales</a> at limited screenings in Phoenix, several weeks prior to its release.

US-POLITICS-UNREST-PROTEST

WATCH: Ben Shapiro Goes To Berkeley In ‘No Safe Spaces’

Alan Dershowitz

Ben Shapiro

Dennis Prager

Free Speech

University of California Berkeley

Freedom of speech is in the First Amendment for a reason. Freedom begins with the ability to speak your opinion without fear of censorship or violent reprisal or imprisonment. This is a precious human right, not something that most countries in the world revere like we have. But here in America, free speech is most dangerously under attack in the one place you would not expect: the universities.
Dennis Prager and Adam Carolla have created a new documentary on the subject called &#8220;No Safe Spaces.&#8221; Prager announces near the outset that a Pew Research Center survey found 49% of college students do not support free speech if it&#8217;s designated as &#8220;hate speech.&#8221; He asked, &#8220;Do you know how moronic that is? The issue of free speech doesn&#8217;t apply to love speech. Nobody ever threatened love speech.&#8221;
Prager objects to people who say all humans yearn to be free. He said it&#8217;s more common for humans to yearn to be taken care of. &#8220;We have raised a generation to believe that to be taken care of is more important than liberty.&#8221;
The documentary includes Carolla testifying before Congress about the current generation on campus. &#8220;They grew up dipped in Purell, playing soccer games where they never kept score and watching &#8216;Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!&#8217; And we&#8217;re asking them to be mature.&#8221; He can&#8217;t stand the idea that radical students are running the campus, while the administrators surrender. &#8220;We need the adults to start being the adults.&#8221;
Then there are chilling examples of how the left wants to censor speech they don&#8217;t like. One white woman reads into a microphone: &#8220;There will be resistance, and it will not be peaceful. Resistance to violent hate speech is not another act of hate. It is an act of love.&#8221; Later in the film, her rant continues: &#8220;There is no free speech for fascists. Their words are violent, and for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.&#8221;
Obviously, the main targets of censorship at American colleges are the conservative speakers invited to campus. They may seem like rare external threats when the faculty doesn&#8217;t have any troublesome right-wingers to challenge them in the classroom. &#8220;When you are conservative, you are not wrong. You are evil,&#8221; Prager summarizes. &#8220;They have to think you&#8217;re evil. Otherwise, they have to debate us.&#8221;
But the film also explores liberal professors and teaching assistants being punished for crossing the speech police. We&#8217;re glad we&#8217;ve reported on some of these, such as Nicholas and Erika Christakis at Yale, who they crusaded to drive off campus for expressing the sentiment that children should be allowed to choose their own Halloween costumes.
The central exhibit is Bret Weinstein, who was forced out at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, after he, as a white male, dared to show up and teach during a &#8220;Day of Absence,&#8221; when all white people were supposed to avoid coming to campus.
And they bring in liberal and leftist voices, like Van Jones and Alan Dershowitz, to defend free speech. The most prominent one is former President Barack Obama. &#8220;Anybody who comes to speak to you and you disagree with, you should have an argument with them,&#8221; Obama said at an education town hall in 2015. &#8220;But you shouldn&#8217;t silence them by saying, &#8216;You can&#8217;t come because I&#8217;m too sensitive to hear what you have to say.'&#8221;
By the film&#8217;s end, you can sense that the censorious excesses have been punished. But it certainly doesn&#8217;t mean this problem is over. Free speech on campus is an ongoing battle, so this movie needs to be seen — far and wide.
L. Brent Bozell III is the president of the Media Research Center. Tim Graham is director of media analysis at the Media Research Center and executive editor of the blog NewsBusters.org. To find out more about Brent Bozell III and Tim Graham, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Tape over mouth.

BOZELL & GRAHAM: Speech Police And ‘Safe Spaces’

Adam Carolla

A new study in the journal &#8220;Clinical Psychological Science&#8221; claims that so-called &#8220;trigger warnings&#8221; &#8212; visible warnings placed on controversial material and material that might cause post-traumatic stress disorder in individuals who have experienced certain forms of trauma &#8212; have only &#8220;trivial effects&#8221; on a person&#8217;s mental health and are mostly worthless.
<a href="https://reason.com/blog/2019/03/20/trigger-warnings-study-trivial-effects">Robby Soave at Reason Magazine reports</a> that the study found that &#8220;[t]rigger warnings don&#8217;t really leave anyone worse off &#8230; [b]ut they don&#8217;t help matters, either: Study participants who received a trigger warning were just as bothered by traumatic words and images as participants who saw the words and images without any forewarning.&#8221;
That renders trigger warnings almost completely useless when used in an academic context.
Strangely enough, this is actually a more positive story for trigger warnings and their respective users. A Harvard University study published last year, which this study may have set out to contradict, found that trigger warnings actually make people &#8220;less resiliant to trauma,&#8221; and in some cases may make certain reactions worse.
In some sense, the new study &#8212; a joint effort between University of Waikoto and the City University of New York &#8212; does contradict Harvard&#8217;s findings, but only in that they found trigger warnings are generally neutral. No study on the subject appears to have found trigger warnings beneficial, even though many colleges and universities now make it standard practice to use trigger warnings when students are presented with material they might find disturbing (for a variety of reasons).
&#8220;Researchers showed 1,394 volunteers distressing content (in video and written form), with some of the volunteers seeing trigger warnings such as, &#8216;TRIGGER WARNING: The following video may contain graphic footage of a fatal car crash. You might find this content disturbing,&#8221; <a href="https://metro.co.uk/2019/03/20/sorry-snowflakes-trigger-warnings-dont-actually-anything-8953061/">according to Metro UK</a>. &#8220;The researchers found that people&#8217;s responses to the content was the same, whether or not they saw a warning.&#8221;
&#8220;We, like many others, were hearing new stories week upon week about trigger warnings being asked for or introduced at universities around the world,&#8221; one of the study&#8217;s lead researchers told Metro. &#8220;Our findings suggest that these warnings, though well intended, are not helpful.&#8221;
The data also suggests, researchers report, that trigger warnings do little to help those who might have experienced real trauma: &#8220;There was little difference between groups. In other words, individuals with a personal history of trauma who received a trigger warning reported similar levels of distress as did those who did not receive a warning.&#8221;
In fact, researchers said, previous studies have indicated that avoiding controversial or potentially &#8220;triggering&#8221; material might actually make PTSD symptoms worse, and that coming into contact with traumatic material in a controlled environment could help people who have experienced trauma heal &#8212; but that each individual patient would have to discuss that approach with their own qualified professional.
The researchers, at least, do not recommend making use of trigger warnings a regular, academic practice, even though they might still warn certain students who might choose to skip class rather than encounter triggering material.

New Study Says ‘Trigger Warnings’ Are Totally Useless Even If You’ve Actually Been Traumatized

Leftism

Republicans are finally getting proactive about courting the young vote.
Democrats have been targeting the youth vote for decades, and while young voters often didn&#8217;t turn out at the polls, they did &#8212; in droves &#8212; for the 2008 election. But after eight years of Barack Obama &#8212; when a lot of those Millennials ended up living in their parents&#8217; basements again &#8212; the time is ripe for Republicans to put on their own full-court press to win over young voters.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Tuesday dropped by the Turning Point USA&#8217;s High School Leadership Summit in Washington, D.C., and delivered an inspiring speech to conservative high school students, saying colleges today are doing nothing more than creating a generation of &#8220;supercilious snowflakes.&#8221;
&#8220;Rather than molding a generation of mature, well-informed adults, some schools are doing everything they can to create a generation of sanctimonious, sensitive, supercilious snowflakes,&#8221; Sessions said in his speech.
Colleges today suppress free speech &#8212; what with their endless &#8220;trigger&#8221; alarms and &#8220;crying rooms&#8221; and &#8220;safe spaces,&#8221; where precious snowflakes can be safe from differing opinions &#8212; and are openly hostile to conservatives, Sessions said.
&#8220;Too many schools are coddling students,&#8221; Sessions said. &#8220;There was a &#8216;cry-in&#8217; at Cornell after the 2016 election, therapy dogs at the University of Kansas. &#8230; I hope they had plenty of tissues,&#8221; he said to raucous laughter.
Sessions recounted his own college days at Huntingdon College in Alabama. &#8220;The hostility was not as great then as it is today on college campuses,&#8221; he said. But he encouraged the students to &#8220;Stand strong for what you believe in.&#8221;
Sessions&#8217; speech follows another from U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, who told the students gathered at the summit that they need to stop trying to &#8220;own the libs.&#8221;
&#8220;Raise your hand if you&#8217;ve ever posted anything online to quote-unquote &#8216;own the libs.&#8217;&#8221; A lot of hands went up, along with cheers. But Haley had a warning.
&#8220;I know that it&#8217;s fun and that it can feel good, but step back and think about what you&#8217;re accomplishing when you do this &#8212; are you persuading anyone? Who are you persuading? We&#8217;ve all been guilty of it at some point or another, but this kind of speech isn&#8217;t leadership &#8212; it&#8217;s the exact opposite.
&#8220;Real leadership is about persuasion, it&#8217;s about movement, it&#8217;s bringing people around to your point of view. Not by shouting them down, but by showing them how it is in their best interest to see things the way you do,&#8221; Heley said.

Sessions Tells Young Conservatives To Scorn College Culture Of ‘Sanctimonious Snowflakes’

Democratic Party

Jeff Sessions

Liberalism

Nikki Haley

Republican Party

A group of students wearing &#8220;Make America Great Again&#8221; hats were booted from a non-profit coffee shop on the Fordham University campus because the cafe is considered a &#8220;safe space,&#8221; and the hats were triggering customers and staff.
<a href="https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=10251">In a shocking video obtained by Campus Reform</a>, a student worker at Rodrigue&#8217;s Coffee House harasses and berates the group, screaming that the students were &#8220;&#8220;Fascism, Nazis!&#8221; and they have &#8220;three minutes&#8221; to vacate the premises.
WATCH:
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&#8220;You are threatening the integrity of our club. This is a community standard &#8212; you are wearing hats that completely violate safe space policy,&#8221; the woman &#8212; the coffee shop manager &#8212; says in the video. &#8220;You have to take it off or you have to go.&#8221;
When the students take their time, the woman becomes agitated, eventually screaming &#8220;Get out! Five minutes.&#8221;
When a student asks her to explain, she continues to shout. &#8220;Fascism, Nazis! You have three minutes.&#8221;
&#8220;I do not see fascism, Nazis on this hat,&#8221; one of the hat-wearing students answers. &#8220;I see America.&#8221;
In a later interview with the New York Post, the MAGA-hat wearing group says they weren&#8217;t &#8220;reading off a manifesto&#8221; or even talking politics. They were sitting in the coffee house discussing their respective study strategies for finals week.
According to Campus Reform, the coffee house is actually an extra-curricular &#8220;club,&#8221; and is staffed by a group of volunteers, and it&#8217;s ideological leanings are well known. There are also rules for patronizing the coffee shop. Among them, &#8220;Do not make assumptions about someone&#8217;s gender, sexuality, race, class, or experiences&#8221; and &#8220;No racism &#8212; No sexism &#8212; No homophobia.&#8221;
They claim to be an open space on their Facebook page, and a review of their services indicates that Rodrigue&#8217;s &#8220;is the only on-campus club that provides a daily, tangible service to all members of the Fordham community through low-priced, organic and Fair-Trade coffee drinks as well as an open community space.&#8221;
But their commitment to diversity apparently extends only so far.

WATCH: Students With MAGA Hats EVICTED From ‘Safe Space’ Coffee Shop At Fordham U

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