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Got into it with a professor after he said trigger warnings violate free speech
He argued that giving a heads up about violent content in a lecture is the same as censoring the material, but I think that ignores how students can't actually learn if they're blindsided by something graphic - like when he showed a war documentary without warning and half the class walked out - so where do you draw the line between protecting people and protecting ideas?
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ramirez.sage14d ago
Totally agree with you. Had a similar thing happen in my psych class where the professor showed a video of a real surgery without warning and a kid actually passed out. It's not about censoring the material, it's about letting people brace themselves so they can actually pay attention. If half the class is walking out or having a panic attack, nobody's learning anything anyway. A simple "hey heads up this gets graphic" doesn't remove anything from the lecture, it just lets people choose how they engage with it.
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Used to be firmly in the "trigger warnings are just censorship" camp until a history prof showed footage of a concentration camp without any warning. I was fine, but the girl next to me was sobbing and had to leave, and the prof just kept talking over her. That moment made me realize a heads up isn't about dumbing down the material, it's about basic human decency so people can actually stay in the room and learn. A simple "hey this is graphic" takes two seconds and doesn't change the content one bit.
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