But is it really asking too much that a sexual assault victim get fair warning that there's a rape scene in a book? Here's an article about the original action from the UC Santa Barbara student newspaper. It's really not the Orwellian threat everyone is making it out to be. Nobody's asking for anything to be banned or censored. All they're asking for is warning.
What this has revealed is that PTSD still isn't taken seriously. It seems that our society has a cycle when it comes to dealing with a new mental illness:
- the sufferers make their case about getting a little consideration to better cope with their illness.
- Everyone else treats their illness as equivalent to the ordinary emotions everyone copes with.
- the concerns are dismissed along with some insults and questioning of the victims' courage.
Today, PTSD survivors are just going through the same routine we've already been through with depression. Most people have moved beyond telling the depressed to just suck it up. But we're still okay with accusing trauma survivors trying to avoid flashbacks of hiding from reality.
A couple of caveats: I can understand professors fear of this policy. Universities have done a poor job of creating power structures that balance the rights of students and faculty, and professors already live in fear that a particularly determined student could make life hell for them with complaints. This policy offers another avenue for that possibility, so I'm betting professors will err on the side of too many warnings. But as I say, that's a pre-existing flaw in the university structure.
Secondly, yes, students and their organizations will likely abuse the system by claiming triggers on virtually everything they find offensive or just objectionable. But I wouldn't reject a policy just because it means administrators will have to keep saying no to every demanding activist group.
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