At its meeting last week, the Student Assembly passed a resolution, SA Res. 31, that would require so-called “trigger warnings” for “traumatic content” discussed in the classroom.
The resolution serves as a recommendation to university officials to institute such requirements. Further, the resolution “urges” professors to not only warn students about this content, but also excuse those who wish to opt-out of learning it. “[S]tudents who choose to opt-out of exposure to triggering content will not be penalized, contingent on their responsibility to make up any missed content.”
The resolution’s authors cite mental health issues, such as PTSD, as the rationale for this recommendation. The Student Assembly contends that the absence of trigger warnings “can lead to poorer academic performance and increased absenteeism.” The SA is particularly troubled by references to “sexual assault, domestic violence, self-harm, suicide, child abuse, racial hate crimes, transphobic violence, homophobic harassment, xenophobia.”
However, recent studies have shown inconclusive, if not negative, results from trigger warnings for sufferers of trauma. Harvard University psychology expert Payton Jones “found substantial evidence that trigger warnings counter therapeutically reinforce survivors’ view of their trauma as central to their identity.”
The resolution has attracted the attention of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). For transparency, this very publication has partnered with FIRE in the past.
In a letter to Martha Pollack, FIRE blasted the resolution as violative of “open inquiry” and “a gross infringement of faculty members’ academic freedom to discuss pedagogically relevant material in class in the manner of their choosing.” The letter implies that such “trigger warnings” could be compelled speech– which Cornell has arguably engaged in before.
FIRE closed its letter with an ultimatum—a ”respectful request”—that Cornell kill the resolution by April 5th.
This is not the first time FIRE has weighed in on the state of discourse at Cornell. Last year, the organization called on President Pollack to “to take action on the request made by the Cornell Free Speech Alliance (CFSA).” The CFSA wanted the university to “expand on its current freshmen orientation programming to include a section on the First Amendment and academic freedom principles.”
Survey data released by the group earlier this academic year also indicated that Cornell ranked below average nationally for free speech. However, FIRE gave Cornell’s due process protections an “A” rating in 2022, the only such rating among 53 major colleges surveyed.
In February, the Cornell Review and other student groups also hosted FIRE’s executive vice president Nico Perrino to discuss civil discourse.
An earlier edition of this article erroneously stated that the resolution had not passed at the time of FIRE’s letter, and that FIRE’s letter was incorrect in its claim that it had. In fact, the resolution was passed by the Student Assembly on March 23, making FIRE’s letter accurate. The assembly website indicated that the resolution was still under consideration until late March 29, despite being adopted nearly a week before.
