Dear University of Chicago,

The other day, you announced that "safe spaces and so-called trigger warnings" had no place on your campus because it inhibits free speech. In other words, you aren't just saying "eff your safe spaces," you're saying "eff you": to every sexual assault survivor on that campus. Your letter states that the university is focused on creating an environment based on "the exchange of free ideas," but it's really saying that you don't support sexual assault survivors. There's a way to facilitate free speech without offending anyone, and this is not the way to go about it. This, coming from your institution that just a few months ago had two new federal Title IX investigations for how you handle sexual assault cases.

Allowing freedom of expression is important to survivors, trigger warnings are necessary to make it through daily life. There are so few things survivors feel control over and by describing this sensitive necessity as "your so-called trigger warnings," implicates that you simply don't care.

I understand the idea that people think that millennials are coddled and provided too many "safe spaces." But there has to be a way to allow freedom of expression on your campus without disturbing the peace that so many survivors fight to find. When almost a quarter of your female students and a sixteenth of your male students will (statistically) experience sexual assault during their time on your campus, your letter is telling them that once they become a statistic, you won't support them. When nine out of ten sexual assault survivors know their assailant, there's an ever-nagging feeling in the back of their heads wondering if they'll walk into their next class or they'll pass them on their daily walk to class.

Your campus needs trigger warnings unless you want to invalidate the education that survivors will receive at your institution. Students may inexplicably have some "so-called" panic attacks during class discussions or drop a class because their "so-called" attacker is in it. By allowing trigger warnings you aren't facilitating safe spaces, you're providing an education to each of your students--which, if I'm correct, is one of the main goals of your institution.

Sincerely,

Someone who needs trigger warnings