For my semester project, I am focusing my topic on safe spaces and how social media looks at them. This summer, the President of the University of Chicago agreed to get rid of safe spaces on campus as he felt that college is the place for young adults to experience opposing or challenging ideas. He also outlined his worry that by students refusing to listen to ideas outside of their own, it sets them up to being a "coddled youth".
My project, which will be in the form of an article, will explore both sides of the argument. Critics of safe spaces believe that its existence goes against freedom of speech. However, the opposing side argues that by having safe spaces or trigger warnings, it allows students to have a place to deal with any discomfort or at least have a heads-up before dealing with heavy subjects.
I chose this subject in light of the University of Chicago's decision over the summer, and also because I feel that because we're students on a college campus, it should be an interesting discussion to hear what the rest of the class thinks about safe spaces and trigger warnings, as well as this idea that this generation is a "coddled" one.
I think it would interesting to see how safe spaces have become incorporated onto college campuses after the presidential election. I found an article below from USA Today that discusses how campus across the nation are holding safe spaces, meditation and resources post election. For example, the University of California Berkely created a safe space for minority students (undocumented students, people of color, LGBT and etc.) post election as students may potentially fear for their safety.
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I think this is a great idea, like mentioned above there are movements spreading wide across the nation on creating safe spaces for people of minority groups. Maybe another way to approach this is to localize and relate your research to maybe what's occurring within NJ or even throughout the Rutgers campuses and compare that to what is being done or not being done across the nation.
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