We need safe spaces: Inside the misunderstood world of respectful dialogue

“We have to be allowed to get messy.” – Lynet Uttal

This is one of the first sentences I read in Introduction to Women, Gender and Sexuality, a prerequisite to completing a major that adamantly promotes the existence of safe spaces in classrooms.

Uttal is not talking about finger painting. She’s talking about resistance to solidarity for the sake of political correctness, a resistance to passivity. She’s talking about speaking out when we disagree with one another.

My professor went on to explain that our conversations in the class might indeed be messy. We may be uncomfortable. We may strongly disagree with our classmates. We may have personal belief systems confronted and challenged. But she states that we should not withhold our speech for fear of offending others, because what we talk about, by nature of the subject, can be polarizing and confusing. Messy. That’s okay. It is how we will learn.

She follows by asserting that this classroom is still very much a safe space, and that no undermining of identities or hate speech will be tolerated. Both statements are true.

I want to convince you that this is possible. That safe spaces can be both home to differing opinions and the freest form of respectful speech.

I write this article amidst much distaste toward the perceived uniformity of safe spaces at universities. A quick Google search defines a safe space in an inflammatory (and frankly, inaccurate) way, as an area where “a shared political or social viewpoint is required to participate in the space.”

The New York Times recently published an article characterizing safe spaces as a way to protect students from certain forms of speech. The president of Oklahoma Wesleyan University has openly proclaimed his disdain for safe spaces in arguing that his institution is “a university, not a daycare.” Last, but certainly not least, my dad recently called safe spaces (and I quote), “a crock of shit.”

This general public opinion on safe spaces – that they prohibit free speech and are counterproductive to learning – is a misunderstanding. Safe spaces, when implemented correctly, do not impede free speech. They do not coddle students nor do they discourage learning. In fact, some of the most open and candid revelations I have ever heard have been expressed in safe spaces.

To avoid having to formulate my argument using an inaccurate definition, I have come up with my own. I define a safe space as anywhere where anyone is welcome to share his/her/their story, opinion, or belief, to fully express their truth or experience, and in turn are fully and respectfully listened to, without feeling their identity is threatened or attacked.

Their identity. Not their opinion.

Let’s break these terms down. Merriam-Webster defines identity in a wonderfully simple way: “who someone is.” An opinion, on the other hand, is “what someone thinks about a particular thing.” This seems obvious, but it’s important. What I want to point out is that safe spaces do not exist to protect opinions, as they have frequently been accused of doing. Rather, safe spaces exist to protect identities, especially marginalized ones.

An example of a safe space protecting a specific marginalized group

I mean this next statement in the least offensive way possible: if you have never understood safe spaces, it’s likely because you’ve never needed one. It’s possible that you have never felt a threat or disbelief in regards to your identity. And no, I don’t mean your opinion – such as whether or not gluten allergies really exist or which candidate you think should win the upcoming election. I mean your identity. The core of your being. An irrevocable part of self.

Maybe you’ve never told a story of racism, homophobia, or sexism committed against yourself and been met with any of the following responses: “That doesn’t happen. I don’t believe you. You’re overreacting. You’re exaggerating. That’s just one example.” Maybe no one has ever discredited an experience unique and central to your identity.

Here’s a hypothetical example of a girl we’ll call Jane, to show the difference between challenging an opinion and challenging an identity. In a safe space, it is perfectly acceptable to challenge Jane’s belief, as a queer woman, that grapefruits are the best fruit. It is not, however, acceptable to challenge her identity as a queer woman.

So you can argue that grapefruits suck until the cows come home, but it’s not the same as arguing that Jane is not actually queer because queer people can’t like grapefruit. I’m trying to be entertaining here, but hopefully you get the point.

In the first case, you’re challenging a belief, or an informed opinion, that grapefruits are the best fruit. In the second, you’re challenging Jane’s identity as a queer woman, making her feel as though her self is no longer legitimate. And while safe spaces should not inhibit learning or differing views, they also certainly should not protect and/or uphold systems of oppression like homophobia or sexism (to name a few), or any form of hateful or threatening speech.

Certain people may argue that identity is simply a bunch of opinions strung together, or that a certain political affiliation is central to one’s identity. While this may be true, I hope I am clear in establishing there are certain parts of identity that cannot be classified as opinion. A person’s ethnicity is not an opinion. A person’s race is not an opinion. A person’s gender is not an opinion. Nor are their subsequent experiences in being that person. You cannot respectfully challenge it – it just is.

A similar aspect of safe spaces that people seem to disagree with is the idea of “triggering” or “trigger warnings.” A trigger warning is defined as “preventing unaware encountering of certain materials or subjects for the benefit of people who have an extremely strong and damaging emotional response (for example, post-traumatic flashbacks or urges to harm themselves) to such topics.” Many people who speak out about this argue, again, that people need to encounter ideas different from their own, ones that make them uncomfortable.

But insisting people read material that triggers a post-traumatic stress reaction is not making someone merely uncomfortable, it is potentially forcing them to relive a traumatic experience. It is unnecessarily cruel.

Just as you would likely warn someone who engaged in military combat of a graphic war scene in a movie (and give them the option to leave the room), you should do the same for a rape survivor regarding a graphic account of sexual assault in a novel.

People who need trigger warnings about a certain topic aren’t exempt from “encountering those ideas,” since likely they have already experienced them firsthand. They are already the experts.

Trigger warnings and safe spaces are not in place to violate the First Amendment. They do not aim to  coddle college students. Safe spaces give students a base line of respect, of acceptance for each other and each other’s identities – from which they can go about their heated debates and classroom discussions in much more productive and considerate ways.