edit: also safe spaces promote acceptance of dogma over free thinking, which Universities claim to be centers of.
I don't understand how there was dogma over free thinking in this context. I keep trying to understand where my experiences with things labeled "safe space" align with a rather big voice on the internet and within my peers that "safe space" meetups are somehow oppressive or regressive to ideals and communication. I wouldn't be offended that there exists literary workshops that I cannot attend or that there are physics conferences I wouldn't be welcome in because I know nothing of physics.
Could you suggest a "safe space" for me to enter and observe for myself that would better align with this issue? I understand there aren't any serious surveys or academic study listing experiences of "safe space" and their repercussions so I've been trying to seek out and gather my own data.
Also, as a straight, white person myself, I understand that there are some discussions where my opinions are irrelevant and unwanted because I simply haven't experienced what others have and am unable to understand and empathize as intimately. Excluding my opinion isn't a slight against free thinking, it's a shortcut because I have nothing to contribute.
Or in other words, outside perspectives are never useful? All the advice about having papers / presentations proofread by people not involved, about looking to outside sources to check if you're stuck in a rut, about the value of diversity of backgrounds and opinions, is all bullshit and worse than useless?
That's pretty much it. Also to actualize through the echo chamber.
I was going to jump in and say this. Basically everyone has a "safe space" that they go to every day, but students often don't, especially the freshmen in residence randomly assigned roommates.
To designate a space on campus where students can go where their ideology will be respected no matter what just compensates for the fact they don't have a home that they can kick people out of.
The problem is that the safe space attitude spreads to the rest of the campus, which isn't OK, but it happens because of faculty attitudes and risk of litigation, and it would happen even if no designated safe spaces existed.
The way I see it, designating a safe space is a good way for universities to keep dogma out of classrooms.
In some sense, it's a bit like "political correctness". I doubt that the people who rail against political correctness and the people who encourage political correctness are talking about exactly the same thing.
Variants along this argument come up all the time. It's pretty much the entirety of political speechwriting; Even Trump's most outlandish statements are forms of it. He'll proclaim to ban all muslims, back up to 'well, just enhanced screening', but darned if it's not going to be racist anyway. But on the opposite side, nearly every gun control argument ends up this way, with someone asking that just 'assault weapons' with 'no sports shooting value' be banned, and then their list of assault weapons is based on whatever the most common rifle is at the time.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_castle [2]http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Bait-and-switch#Motte_and_baile...
There's a difference between having a meet-up or speech on campus on specialized topics and blocking all dissenting opinions because of feelings (not logic mind you.) Well before "safe spaces" were a thing, when I was in school, I could go to speeches that had minority opinions...no one ever disrespected the speakers; even if we had topic of disagreeing. I went to a viewing of a trans documentary, there was no "safe space," there was a good discussion afterwards. There was no need for a "safe space," because we were all adults, we aren't children.
What you are essentially describing is a forum about specific topics. That's not a "safe space," it may have been one but that's not quite an accurate representation.
One example of a "safe space" gone wrong has been the banning of certain speakers (that were already booked) from speaking on campus, because it violated student's "safe space." This has happened to a number of people, including Bill Maher and Condoleezza Rice. If you can't listen to the views of those you disagree with, you are not going to be a tolerant person. It encourages uniformity of ideas, the opposite of what academic inquiry should be about.
Then, we have things like "free speech zones" on campus, designated areas on campus where you are allowed to speak freely, displaying free speech on other part of campus can get you expelled. (read more about these on thefire.org.)
Anyhow, here's an op-ed from Michael Bloomberg and Charles Koch (not example bed fellows) http://www.wsj.com/articles/why-free-speech-matters-on-campu...
I do really encourage you to read the thefire.org, campus practices on free speech are often awful. You can look up your own school on their site and view their score on free speech.
There is also the not new issue of students protesting speakers they think have objectionable views worth protesting on campus. This bothers some free speech advocates even though it is an expression of free speech. Something something totalitarianism, slippery slope, etc. I find it an overreaction from the right. In my personal opinion, speech is free when it is free to be in conflict.
So really there are very many issues developing right now on college campuses and they are all conflated together because the point is to have an enemy to hate ("SJW's" or "the regressive left"). So diverse issues and points of views are agglomerated into one ball of evil to hate. Some people refuse to allow college students, barely adults, to be wrong or misguided and learn from their mistakes. Also those same people like to pretend college students have immense power to censor speech at a scale that threatens what they find good in society.
There's also a certain zealotry in defense of the status quo which is probably older than history itself.
Citing free speech, to protest someone exercising their free speech, is... I dunno, there seems something backwards there. Someone is missing the point, at any rate.
I've actually been to a few to see what exactly is going on and what I found was that those meetings tended to talk about issues that are very specific to those groups and therefore there couldn't be much in the way of discussion for people not in those groups. It's not too dissimilar from a meetup of people who want to discuss specific algorithmic proofs in that it's a "safe space" for people in that field and in that education and the quality of conversation would be less productive for the people there if someone not in that field or education arrived and joined in with a bunch of confusion or lack of education about what algorithms are.
I really am confused because I've yet to encounter a "safe space" in which I felt that there was a plan to censor people or order people that they can't say certain things. Meetings hosted by the "safe space" at my university have come off to me as a space to intellectually discuss topics more or less pertaining to a demographic who would otherwise not have as productive a conversation if they had to explain what sexuality is. I've also experienced similar environments in editor's meetups in literature and research groups in STEM.
Could you provide me with a study or article regarding how the existence of an isolated space for the discussion of topics is wrong or bad? I don't mean to attack you or say that "safe spaces" are a good thing. I just don't see the difference between "safe spaces" for minorities differs from spaces of intellectual discussion in STEM.