A recent survey of colleges and universities around the country has found that over half of faculty members and professors regularly use so-called trigger warnings to alert students to discussions of potentially sensitive material, such as sexual or racial violence.
The University of Chicago recently revived the nationwide conversation on the use of such signaling in the classroom. Citing its commitment to free speech, it became the first academic institution of its kind to take a firm and definitive stance against “trigger warnings” and “safe spaces” in a letter sent to incoming freshmen in August.
But if elite or high-profile universities have typically dominated the debate on academic freedom, there is still little readily available data on just how common these warnings are and how teachers and students use them all around the country.
Results of the NPR survey suggest that “trigger warnings” are ubiquitous on American campuses.
Out of more than 800 professors surveyed during the 2015-16 school year, 51% reported that they had used a trigger warning in advance of introducing sensitive topics of conversation in class, while 49% said they had never used them.
Over three quarters of the 428 professors who admitted using them said they taught at a public non-profit (four- or two-year) university. Bn contrast, only 19% of these instructors are employed at private institutions.
Notably, most admitted that they generally gave students a heads up about sensitive topics out of their own volition—because they believed the material required it and not to pander to student requests (only 3.4% said students asked for them) or administrative policies. In fact, as of last fall, only 1.8 % said their institutions had official policies about their use.
Even if they did not use them in class, most college professors were familiar with the concept. Some 86% of college professors said they knew the term and 56% said they had heard of colleagues using them.
Survey respondents said they had typically used warnings before talking about emotionally charged subjects like female genital mutilation, genocide or rape. Interestingly, none of the teachers recalled instances of students missing class because of topics that made them uncomfortable, but they did note that students sometimes excused themselves from class when “triggered.”
“I have had students break down reading novels depicting sexual assault and incest in my gender studies courses,” a professor at the University of North Carolina said in a response.