Northwestern U. President Thinks Those Who Question Safe Spaces Are 'Lunatics'

Colleges used to be perceived as places where debate was welcome and everyone ultimately wanted to learn. We know that’s not the case these days, as progressives have completely infected numerous institutions. The latest proof of this comes from Northwestern University.

University President Morton Schapiro takes serious issue with anyone who doesn’t agree with things like “trigger warnings” and “safe spaces.” Basically, anyone who thinks college students need to toughen the hell up and learn to deal with things they don’t like as if they were big boys and girls rather than spoiled toddlers like they currently do:

“The people who decry safe spaces do it from their segregated housing places, from their jobs without diversity — they do it from their country clubs,” Schapiro said. “It just drives me nuts.”

During his convocation speech on Monday at Welsh-Ryan Arena, Schapiro said students are likely to feel uncomfortable at Northwestern. But he said they deserve a space where they can let their guard down — whether it’s a musical group, religious center or the Black House.

Wow.  Just … wow.

The people who decry “safe spaces” do it from everywhere, actually — a majority of people find them ridiculous.

And some college-aged men and women mock safe spaces from places of actual danger — like, say, a deployment. Plenty of heroic black U.S. soldiers don’t get to “let their guard down” from bombs, let alone … gasp! … opposing viewpoints.

Frankly, a lot of people don’t feel comfortable at Northwestern because of “safe spaces.”

Does he think about what it’s like to know that the university president himself thinks you’re “dangerous” for simply being an independent thinker?

Schapiro’s comments didn’t stop there:

Schapiro acknowledged the ongoing debate about college students being “coddled” and not resilient enough. Calling people who deny the existence of microaggressions “idiots,” Schapiro said he clearly remembers every microaggression he has experienced.

Sounds like Schapiro needs to toughen up himself. After all, when even mispronouncing someone’s name is a microaggression, hanging on to every perceived slight like that — and judging good people, all the time, as bigots and “idiots” for their perceived slights — makes for a miserable life.

Then there was this:

Schapiro also criticized those who “conflate” the use of trigger warnings with undermining the First Amendment, saying students should be warned about potentially traumatic content, such as the Holocaust or lynching of black people.

“If they say that … you shouldn’t be warned to prepare yourself psychologically for that, that somehow that’s coddling, those people are lunatics,” Schapiro said.

Here’s why this is so appalling. Real triggers are a diagnosable, scientific thing.

Schapiro and these whiners not only stifle free speech, slander good people, and do a terrible job of preparing students for a happy life, they trivialize real suffering.

A rape victim who starts to panic because someone is walking behind her. A vet who jumps, who has flashbacks, from every loud noise. These people need help — and deserve it. And the help they need involves learning how to cope — not learning how to shut up the outside world.

Talk about “cultural appropriation”! Schapiro and his Special Snowflakes are appropriating actual suffering for the advancement of their own politics.

The reality is that Shapiro and people such as him who think they’re doing students a favor by sheltering them from reality are the lunatics.

The rest of us are disgusted by their appropriation of real suffering. By their lack of “comfort” within the world’s most privileged experience — higher education. And by Schapiro’s shameful, nasty idiocy.