With the arrival of a new freshman class at any college, one can expect a certain amount of orientation to get them prepared to start their new lives away from home and help integrate them into their intimidating new environment.

Often this is days long, filled with ice breakers, group activities, and meetings about the specific mantras of the college. The purpose is to get students comfortable and familiar with the college and what it stands for, before pushing them into the rigor of classes and schedules all at once.

At the University of Chicago, this introduction to the ideals and opinions of the college came early to those freshmen in the class of 2020 in the form of a letter from the dean.

Among average aspects of congratulations and welcomes, there were several controversial elements to the letter that were not so expected.

It opens in the standard way and continues with a discussion of the college’s condoning of “freedom of inquiry and expression”. The college makes quite clear their disapproval towards those who are intolerant of others, saying this does not entail a “freedom to harass or threaten others”.

And probably the most controversial of their statements followed suit, writing that the college does not support “trigger-warnings”, does not plan to uninvite speakers whose content may offend some students, and does not condone “safe spaces” where students can go to escape the severity of dissenting words and ideas.

The school seems to believe that this is the best way in which to foster active student growth of character and intellect. They speak to the diversity of ideas and opinions of their student body and think that exploring these ideas without those three constraints is the most healthy for their students.

And that’s completely the university’s decision to make.

As a private institution, the school is allowed to champion certain teaching styles or ways of living over others. They have every right to, and the students willingly chose that school to attend for their educations. The school believed that this was an important enough belief to risk losing the enrollment, (and money), of potential students in stressing, and that is enough to perhaps give this growingly unpopular mindset another thought.

In my opinion, college is just as much about cultivating students intellectually and preparing them for their perspective careers as it is about creating human beings that are prepared for the real world. It is just as socially cultivating as intellectually, and it’s meant to shape and model the best equipped citizens for living everyday life.

And I agree that this cannot be done if people are so focused on what NOT to say.

No where in the letter does the dean say that safe spaces or trigger warnings are forbidden on campus; the letter simply says they are not condoned. The college will not make an active effort to enforce them because the college feels that the students will lose out of diversity of thought. They might lose out on opinions that challenge their world views and will perhaps change their perceptions about mankind, ones that might hinder their progress in making thoughtful contributions to subjects or moral issues to which they will be exposed in daily life.

College is meant to prepare you for the real world, and this cannot be done if everyone is sheltered and censored because the “real world” is not like that. No one goes around considering if their comments are going to offend someone before they speak and people aren’t going to cater specifically to your best interests. Instead of trying to change the environment to fit one's needs, one should learn to adapt to his or her environment, even if this might entail exposure to uncomfortable stimuli.

Only with a culmination of thought and opinions to foster more diverse mental development, only by hearing potentially offensive things even if only to reinforce one’s own superior rationales, only by hearing a dissenting argument can one strengthen their counter. Only in all this can a person grow and change into an adult who is best equipped to handle the hard world around us.