DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: Ithaca College Professor Stopped Teaching About Sexual Violence Because Students Complained:

Plante is one of many academics who increasingly find themselves walking on eggshells to avoid offending their students. Some law school professors have stopped teaching rape law due to complaints from students who claim the subject is traumatizing—even though educating students about this important topic should be more important than making everybody in class comfortable all of the time.

If professors want to warn their students before discussing particularly disturbing subjects, that’s fine. But it’s concerning that strenuous objection from the students is leading academic to stop teaching these subjects entirely.

And I hate to say this, but it’s undeniable: Plante’s experience makes me wonder if some students are feigning trauma in order to skip class, readings, and assignments. “This triggers me” is the new “my dog ate my homework.”

And thus, knowledge passed on to future generations, much like successive editions of 1984’s Newspeak Dictionary, becomes ever smaller. Tom Wolfe promised us the 21st century would the era of “The Great Relearning,” but in the race between those who wish to preserve mankind’s knowledge and those who want to toss it all away, the airbrush artists are currently winning.