Professors Told to Treat Microaggressions Like Assaults

Ah, the beauty of a microaggression. If you’re not overly familiar with the term, a microaggression is when you say something that’s not outright racist or sexist but still upsets the recipient of the said comment nonetheless.

Some examples of microaggressions include asking someone’s ethnicity in any non-approved manner and mistakenly thinking someone of a given race can speak a particular non-English language because of his or her ethnic heritage.

Now, to be clear, some so-called microaggressions are understandably an issue, but not because of bigotry. Some people just say stupid stuff that comes out very differently than how it was intended.

However, as The College Fix reports, some professors are being urged to treat that poor wording just the same as a punch to the face.

Professors attending a recent academic conference were advised to treat racial microaggressions in the classroom like actual assaults, according to attendees’ tweets.

The advice was doled out at a panel workshop at the annual Association for Theatre in Higher Education conference, held in Las Vegas earlier this month.

The workshop at which the comments were made focused on ways to make theater for students of color a “safe space,” according to the conference’s program.

“A panel discussion exploring an adaption of the ‘Safe Spaces’ LQBTQ training model and applying it to faculty training for all theatre students of color,” the program states.

“Treating racism in our classrooms as we would an assault removes the burden from the victim and begins to create safe space,” one scholar in attendance, Professor Shawna Mefferd Kelty of SUNY Plattsburgh, tweeted out.

The problem, however, is that once again, the left is equating words with actual violence.

I’ve had some horrible things said about me in the PJ Media comments section. I’ve been called everything in the book — language that was well past the misguided comments that make up the bulk of microaggressions. Yet, at no point have I viewed any of those comments as even being close to assault. They’re just words.

If I ask someone “what are you?” I’m guilty of being an insensitive schmuck. But is it remotely the same as if I punched him in the face or kicked him in the groin? Words can be ignored. A slap in the face? Not so much.

Words may “hurt,” after a fashion, but it’s not the same as a physical assault — and any professor who takes this advice to heart deserves to be fired.

It’s time to stop coddling college students, allowing them to pretend the world cares about their precious feelings. Words aren’t violence, and they never will be, so stop arguing that they are.