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Greg Lukianoff And Haidt's The Coddling Of The American Mind

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Today’s college students are becoming more sensitized to the harshness of the outside world. Instead of learning to be resilient to others’ comments, they are being taught to take offense to any little word that could in some way be connected with a bad experience they might have had, and college administrators and professors are aiding this childish behavior. They are backing this movement to make adults into children. With this new movement to rid college campuses of any speech that may make anyone feel uncomfortable, students are being treated less like adults, and more like elementary children. In their essay, “The Coddling of the American Mind”, Greg Lukianoff and Jonathon Haidt express their concern about this movement. They point out how there has been a previous movement similar to this one in that they both seek to restrict speech and broaden diverse-prospective. However, they conclude that, “The current movement is largely about emotional well-being.” and, “…it presumes and extraordinary fragility of the collegiate psyche…” (4). Due to this oversensitivity of college students, some popular comedians have even stopped performing on college campuses. As a result of this movement, the term “microaggression” has risen to the forefront of university campuses. These small actions or choice of words, which appear to have no …show more content…

Vindictive protectiveness is stopping students from learning anything in the four years or more that they spend in college. If they aren’t allowed to speak their mind there is no room for growth. The only thing they are learning is that speech should be under strict control by authorities. Thus teaching them that there really is no freedom of speech under the first

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In Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt’s article, The Coddling of the American Mind, both authors are ASSERTING that the general public uses the use of what they call trigger warnings entirely too much. Lukianoff and Haidt BELIEVE that the extended use of trigger warnings is leading to a degraded and fragile state of mind. As a social psychologist, Jonathan Haidt has made several observations concerning the overall elevated concern for the emotional well being created by the public and for the public. Co-author Greg Lukianoff also has some background credibility as CEO of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. Together, both Lukianoff and Haidt have formed an article that poses the question of whether trigger warnings are causing

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Following this public speech qualified as disruptive, vulgar and obscene, according to the school’s rules, Fraser will be suspended for two days and his name will be removed from a graduation ceremony speakers’ list. Based on these aforementioned facts, Fraser’s father, supported the American Civil Liberty Union (ACLU) will file a lawsuit against the school for violating the First Amendment right to freedom of speech of his son, Matthew Fraser, and will ask for a monetary reparation against the prejudice. As a consequence of this lawsuit, the issue will be discussed, first, before a Federal District Court. Over there, the judge will give a verdict favorable to Fraser on the ground that the

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Text 1 does this through repeated references of colleges and universities. The rhetorical questions in Text 1 are more likely to be directed to professors. For example, ‘What are we doing to our students if we encourage them to develop extra thin-skin just before they leave the cocoon of adult protection?’ However, the same can be The writer keeps referring back to campuses. Being involved in the observations of student’s behaviours in campuses, the writer had first-hand experience on trigger warnings.

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Alabama State Board of Education (1961) was a landmark case that provided college students with the right to due process in a time where individuals were fighting for civil rights. Despite varying opinions on this case, the document gave students their foundation to speak their minds freely as well as the right to a conduct process. Expulsion litigation was forever changed within the context of higher education, giving the students their right to hearings and fighting for their education. Today, Alabama State, like other universities, have conduct offices within higher education that follow a procedural process, including “(1) adjudication of student misconduct; (2) sanctions; (3) an appeals process; (4) organization misconduct; (5) summary suspension; and (6) a grievance procedure against university officials” (The Pilot, 2008-2010, p. 66-74). Even though the students were fighting against segregation in the 1960’s, “their subsequent legal victory for student’s rights paved the way for students across the country to engage in the struggle for racial justice with an unprecedented level of constitutional protection on their side” (Lee, 2014

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A Misleading Attacks on Tigger Warnings, and Safe Spaces In the article “Trigger Warnings, Safe Spaces and Free Speech, too” by Sophie Downes, published in the New York Times. Downes argument in the letter sent out by Dean Ellison by the University of Chicago. The letter states that trigger warnings and safe spaces were an issue from deterring students from having free speech so therefore would not be supported by the University of Chicago campus anymore.

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In the Article “The Year of the Imaginary College Student” Hua Hsu, a teacher at Vassar University does his best to create a case to see if the tension that stems from the fault finding college students say more about those who criticize political correctness more than it does the actual situations revolving around the true state of affairs. He states that the imaginary college student is a character created by critic’s cynicism. An easy target because current students are known as being a selfish, egotistical, and entitled generation also known as the millennial generation. Hsu sites several examples where students were seeking trigger warnings when in reality it is rarely the intention of a student or teacher to say something offensive.

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In the essay, University is Right to Crack Down on Speech and Behavior by Eric Posner argues that students today are more like children than adults and need protection. Posner would always refer back to the college student and how they are still kids not age wise but as their maturity. “The problem is that universities have been treating children like adults.” (Posner 185). The context of his argument is involved with the speed codes.

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Literary analysis People before us fought for our right to speak freely; Colin Powell agrees and says that university students shouldn’t let people hold them back. Although freedom of speech is protected everywhere, at university’s freedom of speech is encouraged. People have to live up to the expectations set by people previous to your life. We have to take advantage of what others fought for; because for all our rights we have others died for. We shouldn’t let their deaths mean nothing exercise your rights this truly comes in to play when people are in college because most know how to exercise their rights in a respectable manner.

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Today’s generation has grown sensitive to simple words or ideas that may arouse discomfort or “offense”, which are described as microaggressions. Students demand trigger warnings in order to shield themselves from these “microaggressions”. Trigger warnings are meant to prevent microaggressions, but the ‘trigger warnings’ themselves limit one’s mind and one’s preparation for reality or professional life. Universities are designed to teach students how to embrace multiple perspectives regardless of that student’s position on an issue. Students should be allowed to express themselves in order to engage in open-minded, academic discourse.

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Though there are some exceptions, the young generation at large today has been brainwashed by politically correct culture. That culture shuns complex thought, and makes any dissent from the PC mainstream punishable by shunning, yelling, and attempts to silence. It runs rampant on college campuses, and Hofstra is no exception. Trigger warnings are unfortunately a major aspect of this culture, and there is little remedy other than to save the minds of those we can still sway. As best summarized by the American Association of University Professors, “The presumption that students need to be protected rather than challenged in a classroom is at once infantilizing and anti-intellectual”

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Dorothy Siegel’s argument in the essay “What Is Behind the Growth of Violence on College Campuses?” is persuasive. Siegel persuades the reader by presenting her points and validating them with facts and statistics. One of the strongest aspects of the argument is that contrary to popular belief, students are committing a majority of the crimes that take place on college campuses; the students “themselves may become the assailants”, not persons from outside of the campus. She further supported this by pointing out that students tend to know their attackers. Another strong aspect of her argument is that campus violence is due to substance abuse.

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In “The Coddling of the American Mind”, Lukianoff and Haidt’s discuss how college students have demanded for trigger warnings, warnings issued before a sensitive topic is discussed. Students are asking for this because they want to be exempt when it comes time to discuss such topics. While the authors believe that, providing students with trigger warnings causes them to become safeguarded from controversial topics, and will not benefit them in the future because they will be not be able to constantly avoid sensitive topics. Lukianoff and Haidt describe something similar when they provide the example of a woman who is afraid of elevators. They indicate that if you want her to prolong her fear you should help her avoid them, but if you want to

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1738 Words | 7 Pages

Case Study: Applying Ethics Microaggressions can have an affect on all individuals. Microaggressions are the everyday verbal, nonverbal, and environmental insults or slights that are intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile or negative messages that target solely upon their marginalized group membership (from Diversity in the Classroom, UCLA Diversity & Faculty Development, 2014). Recently, there has been a controversy between micoaggressions and faculty and the affect they have on students. An article, California professors instructed not to say ‘America is the land of opportunity, has raised the attention of higher education professionals. In the article, Janet Napolitano, the president of the University of California

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In her article, she refers to college as a place to broaden knowledge, “It is, hopefully, a space where the student is challenged and sometimes frustrated and sometimes deeply upset, a place where the student's world expands and pushes them to reach the outer edges – not a place that contracts to meet the student exactly where they are” (Filipovic). From this previous statement, we can conclude that the unexpected in college challenges a student to push their knowledge; however, we should not adapt the learning process to meet students’ needs. A trigger warning serves as protection against a wide range of controversial categories. It is true multiple things could trigger an emotional response, even things as little as skulls, blood, or pregnancy. The discretion on whether a topic can send a student into emotional turmoil is unpredictable.

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The idea of free speech on college campuses and the complications of it stem from those on campuses expressing views that don’t align with popular views. Implications for students who use the idea of free speech as a method for hateful actions and comments should be reprimanded, but the question remains as to whether schools should enforce tougher limitations. The freedom of speech on college campus expands to the freedoms of religion, assembly, press, and protest as well. Freedom of expression allows students to show their own political, social, and cultural views. Removing freedoms of speech and expression have consequences deeper than surface issues.

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