Safe Spaces are NOT in conflict with free speech and university discourse, but fundamental to them

The University of Chicago has taken a stand on students and activists demanding that university life protect them from political, racial, gender, orientation, and other forms of verbal assault from which they may take offense.  UC has announced that it will provide no safe havens (so-called safe spaces) for students who wish to limit discourse they deem excessively hurtful. The argument, it seems, is that a higher education demands a rigorous give-and-take and being protected from offense by those who disagree with us is counterproductive to that enterprise.  Perhaps some at UC, and those who support this position, think this is about the first amendment, a right that assures us that the government is limited in the threats it may employ in response to our public disagreement with it.

Confusion in the media -- including social media -- is rampant.  This is apparently a complicated issue.  But it is a shame to see that even UC has failed to work out the nuances before announcing what appears to be blanket policy on the matter.

Notably, the First Amendment is itself a safe space creator.  It says the government cannot shut down our dissent of it without very good cause.  (We cannot, for example, incite violence or revolution without consequence).  The First Amendment thus creates a safe space -- a constitutionally-protected space, in which grievances of our government can be aired without fear of repercussions.  The fundamental protection of free speech in the US Constitution creates a safe political space for criticisms of those in power.  Anyone, anywhere is "free" to say whatever he wishes; one has the legal right to free speech when one is free to speak what is on one's mind without fear of government reprisal; that is, when one is free to speak safely. 

For speech to be free, it must take place in a safe space.

Notably, the First Amendment says nothing about our right to be heard without being challenged, nor about our right to hear or not hear others.  In public discourse we are not obliged to attend to anyone we don't like, but we may have those voices foisted upon us from time to time. So free speech neither guarantees us an audience for our ideas, nor protects us from others' reaction to our arguments.  We are under no obligation as citizens to hear each other out.  The common view that a right to "free speech" affords us to say anything without reprisal from anyone or, even more oddly, the duty to listen to anyone who wishes our attention, is simply right not.  The legal right to free speech allows us to speak freely, safe from government reprisal.  That's about it.  Free speech requires safety, and free speech of any other sort must be protected in other ways.

Notably, universities play a critical role in society that require that university communities obey rules somewhat different from those in civil society generally.

If universities are to meet their goal of open and honest discourse, there are times and places when and where we in fact must be obliged to hear other arguments -- beyond the obligation of the citizen to do so in everyday life.  We cannot teach and learn without hashing out opposing positions, on at least disagreements about salient features of the argument.  How shall we interpret the evidence describing society as it exists today and in history and what it means for tomorrow?  What obligations do we have to ourselves and one another as ethical citizens of a nation and of the world?  How shall we determine the proper roles of government, business, the ordinary citizen?  How shall we determine the truth of scientific theory and the meaning of scientific experimental findings?  There will always be disagreements about what we the meaning of what we are seeing in the world and what best might be done about it, and vigorous debate about values and practice are often both essential for arriving at the best possible understanding of it.

But we are only obliged to hear other arguments within reason. We are not obliged to hear all other arguments, no matter how ill-prepared, anti-scientific, hateful, dysfunctional, etc. This is not a simple dictum that suggests that "one must be nice" although that may be part of an effective, civil society.  There is something more to it than decorum.

There are constraints on the qualities of an argument in university life that comprise the quid pro quo that earns one the right to be heard.  Most people engaged in this discussion in the media seem to miss the fact that university life both requires that (1) we hear disparate and even disagreeable voices more actively than we do in everyday life, and (2) we have the right and duty to constrain those voices far more tightly, demanding that they meet logical, evidential and coherent standards of argument.  This is the point of education -- to take the naturally emotive, illogical, biased, and self-advancing positions of our students and teach them how to shape those opinions into defensible arguments, ordered by logic, supported by evidence, and articulated in a civil manner.  College discussions that fail to get beyond the emotional and illogical tone of social media do students a great disservice; this is especially challenging in on-line teaching, where students seem especially inclined to fall into such awful habits.  One of the most important roles of the educational institution is to teach and demand these thinking and communication skills -- in both their transmission and their reception. 

An often-missed piece of the safe space puzzle is that the academy not only has the right to ask us to listen, even to offensive arguments, but also the obligation to demand that the way in which these arguments be presented, as well as critiqued, meet reasonable standards of reason and rhetoric.  This is naturally challenging -- both emotionally (to hear the ugly) as well as intellectually (to prepare and to critique logically and fairly).  To make it feasible for emotional human beings to engage well in these efforts, everyone must at a minimum feel safe to do so.  Anger and fear may be motivating, but they should be set aside as well as possible by the rules and the norms of the game.  Faculty and other university administrators cannot demand that students "hear each other out" without discharging their own duty: to ensure that the rhetoric employed be both worthwhile and civil.  The quid pro quo for being obliged to listen is that those who choose to address us do so in sensible and productive ways and it is the role of faculty and university administrators to teach and enforce such intellectual and social skills.

Hence, safe spaces are not, as is imagined by many, antithetical to university discourse, but in fact part of the foundation of energetic, honest, and thorough discourse of the most unpopular ideas.  In university life, students must first be assured that they are safe from nonsensical, angry, hateful, invective attacks on one's person or position -- much less time-wasting attacks -- the very sort of behavior that all reasonable faculty forbid in their classrooms -- before the university has the right, and duty I would add, to demand that students hear one another out.  Universities are not caged "octagons," into which students are thrown together to fight in no-holds-barred, death matches.  No one, much less a young adult in college, should be expected to endure aggressive and sustained taunts about their race, sexual orientation, or politics -- nor should students be encouraged to engage in such counterproductive conflicts (which I fear the UC policy and other like it may unleash).  Learning how to participate in civil, educated discourse is one of the fundamental purposes of higher education, and it is the university's challenge to create the milieu in which university residents interact according to these productive behaviors.

We must treat civil discourse as the equivalent of a safe space and provide it to our students.

Of course, the idea of a "safe space" can be, and has been, misconstrued and misused.  Chalk signs of "Trump 2016" should not have been met with official condemnation at Emory (how was this uncivil or threatening?)  The professor enduring the shrieking Yale student is not what we wish for -- but the question is how to promote sense and sensibility instead of encouraging students to endure the tirades of those who disagree with them.  Trigger warnings can be excessive --some learning is admittedly quite uncomfortable (although I have my suspicions that many of those who promote the idea that learning is uncomfortable have not subjected themselves to much identity-threatening discomfort themselves).  Anything can be excessive.  But in a society in which it is still much harder for some people to feel safe -- it is indisputable that a young black man who insists upon his legal and civil right to see a police warrant before having his car or home searched is much more likely to endure illegal violence against him, for example (an eventuality the First Amendment most assuredly tried to protect us against) -- we cannot hope to hear from the marginalized, and have no right to demand that they listen to the majority.  This doesn't mean that everyone will feel perfectly safe when we seek to behave civilly and productively -- most of us don't like being confronted in the public square and young people are prone to consider disagreement with their values and ideas a serious offense, even when they are not communicated inappropriately.  But it does mean that universities are obliged to facilitate courteous discussion and forbid bullying in all forms. And it does mean that safe spaces are not contrary to the form of free speech that must be conducted in university spaces, but fundamental to them.

No one in civil society is obliged to listen to the angry, incoherent rantings taking place in the political rally of one's opponent, and no one in is obliged to do the same on campus merely because of one's status as a student.  Enrollment in a university comes with a social contract (apparently in need of clarification): the university ensures that civil, quality discourse populates the classroom and the commons and in exchange its students agree to engage (speak and listen) with integrity and engagement.  Only once the University of Chicago and other quality colleges and universities deliver their end of this bargain have they the right to demand that students deliver on their end of it.  But the idea that a safe space is somehow in conflict with "free speech" or the mission of a university is not correct.  I believe UC may have jumped the gun, failing to address its own obligation in this critical quid pro quo; it must first ensure civility and safety before it demand its students listen openly to all criticism of their positions.  At that point, they may insist that students endure the discomfort of vigorous disagreement about even their most sacred shibboleths, but until then students do have the right to insist that the university be a well-regulated, safe community in which this to-and-fro is to take place, one in which the civility and decency of classroom discussion shall be carried over into the university commons.

Note that social media and ordinary civic discussion may allow -- and perhaps there is nothing that can be done to stop -- nonsensical, emotive, partisan utterances, couched in invective, that pass for "speech."  But it would be disastrous to allow the nature and sensibilities of social media -- perniciously and massively influential in the formation of public opinion in 2016 -- to infect university life, where our duty is to do much better than this.

Indeed, create and support -- and do what we can to enforce -- an environment in which civil, sensible discussion takes place and its opposite banished. Then insist that each of us listen civilly to what the other has to say.  Do not confuse this with the confused desire to subject members of the academy to crude and hateful attacks under a very confused banner of "free speech" that has nothing to do with either freedom or speech.