8 ms·

There's a stark difference between a free and voluntary association of like-minded people and a so-called "safe space", which uses a pretext of "victimization"

There's a stark difference between a free and voluntary association of like-minded people and a so-called "safe space", which uses a pretext of "victimization" to capriciously thought control others who simply committed the offense of disagreeing or criticizing. If you hate Christianity, why would you go to this school? If you aren't willing to follow behavioral rules, why would you go to this school? If you think philosophy should only be secular, then why would you go to this school? Schools like this generally make no secret of their expectations for students and faculty. If you say anything negative about the religion or its teachings, you are kicked out. Really? Citation please; I simply don't believe this. Most Christian universities that I have any knowledge of invite (or at least aren't averse to it) tough discussion, and allow for a pretty wide range of critical thought about interpretations of the Bible, how Christianity should relate to politics, culture, science, and many other subjects. Until a few years ago, you could major in something that amounted to being a 'preacher's wife' (I can't remember the name of the major, but that was its goal). And this is evidence of what, exactly? "Safe-spaces", on the other hand, are cudgels of fear, handed to anyone claiming "victimization" to be capriciously used against people with whom they simply disagree and want to shut up. The reason they're even a thing is because school administrators themselves are beholden to the same fear. That's not at all like free association.

doktrin 11y ago
Agreed. The parent was making a fairly disingenuous comparison.
intortus 11y ago
> "Safe-spaces", on the other hand, are cudgels of fear, handed to anyone claiming "victimization" to be capriciously used against people with whom they simply disagree and want to shut up. Oh please. Now who's fear-cudgeling whom? You're being extremely melodramatic in reaction to a questionable anecdote.
- nightspirit 11y ago
  "Safe-spaces" are practical application of the principle, accidentally unearthed by xyz-equality movements of the 20th century, that people generally don't like hurting others and hence you can control them by appearing to be hurt, whether you are or not. People modeling victim behaviors to remove everything that causes them discomfort aren't something to be afraid of, but also their cries for attention aren't something to be treated too seriously. Allowing them to get their way just reinforces further learning of this silly strategy.
  - intortus 11y ago
    This dismissive explanation doesn't account for why stories like this are so attractive to the population of sites like this. It's like people are getting off on superficially demonstrating how emotionally robust they are (I'm not convinced).
    - nightspirit 11y ago
      I'm not robust, I'm just angr^H^H^H^H victimized by people who try to make me feel bad for their emotional issues. I try to explain that a) most people have little reason to feel consistently victimized, besides just a bad habit and b) this way of communicating isn't really productive.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
mc32 11y ago
If all self selecting groups would address the issue as exemplified in this case, I think we'd be better off. While I could not care less about this college or its mission, I'm glad they are confronting the issue of manufactured offense. Taking offence at anything which makes someone feel uncomfortable mentally/psychologically. People should be able to deal with the ugliness of reality as a matter of course rather than something which affronts them or something which calls their existence into question. Harassment, of course, is something different and malicious and should be confronted uncovered and called out, but simple discourse, antagonistic as may be, is something humans should learn how to engage with with relative ease, rather than recoil and become less able to deal with the realities of living in a complex and undanitized society.
nickbauman 11y ago
The real question is how could such a university like OKWU get and keep accreditation with this kind of regime? OKWU is essentially a religious commune masquerading as a university.
Retric 11y ago
Collage is often not a free choice for many students. Parent or guardians are likely to pick such places and students who 'wake up to reality' or 'lose faith' are a long way from voluntary association. Now if you want to argue about how narrow blinkers need to be before a horse is blind then your just missing the point. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blinkers_(horse_tack) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blinkers_(horse_tack)
- warfangle 11y ago
  You're right; a collage is a piece of art made of pieces of other art, rearranged.
maldusiecle 11y ago
Gee, think you have enough scare quotes around? There absolutely are victims on college campuses--victims of sexual assault, of racist acts of violence, of acts of intimidation based on their sexual orientation. I knew people who suffered these things. It's crap to act as if this is all made up. The purpose of safe spaces isn't to impose thought control, it's to allow people who have suffered a chance to recover. You can choose to enter one, or you can choose to stay out of one. It's purely a matter of free association. (Perhaps you're thinking of "speech codes"? I agree in opposing those, but it's a separate issue.) A safe space is nothing more than a "free and voluntary association of like-minded people."
- belovedeagle 11y ago
  The recent outcry against "safe spaces" has been against those established in public spaces and enforced with calls for violence. That's far from a case of free association.
  - maldusiecle 11y ago
    For this I'd like citations. I'd point out, though, that even if a handful of people have been using the idea of "safe spaces" wrongly, that doesn't delegitimize the concept itself. If a few students are doing wrong in the name of "safe spaces," the answer is to argue against those particular students, not against other, unrelated safe spaces.
    - ForHackernews 11y ago
      > For this I'd like citations. I linked this above, but since you asked: https://popehat.com/2015/11/09/safe-spaces-as-shield-safe-spaces-as-sword/ https://popehat.com/2015/11/09/safe-spaces-as-shield-safe-sp... http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/11/how-campus-activists-are-weaponizing-the-safe-space/415080/ http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/11/how-camp...
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
warfangle 11y ago
There's a stark difference between what people who dislike the concept of "safe space" think a "safe space" is and what a "safe space" actually is. A "safe space" is a place where you know you aren't going to be singled out and harmed (verbally or physically) by someone telling you that you're a queer faggot and deserve to die. A "safe space" is a place where people can discuss the actual issues of hatred, bigotry and violence without fear of reprise for being the hated, the attacked, the marginalized. There's a stark difference between "This isn't a place for saying hurtful things; this is a place for talking about why saying those things are hurtful. That's why we're not letting you in here while you continue to marginalize the oppressed. Let's talk about why you think the oppressed should be marginalized instead." All the anti-safe-space discussion on Hacker News lately is truly, horribly, fucking disgustingly indicative of the inherent sexism and flat-out hatred that worms its way through developer culture. They are absofuckinglutely not cudgels of fear. And people who claim they are need to take a real fucking hard look at themselves and their views on those who are verbally bullied, physically attacked, raped, and murdered for being who they fucking are.
- chrisdbaldwin 11y ago
  That's a long way of saying "shut up."
  - warfangle 11y ago
    That's a long way of saying "you don't matter."
- mkrfox 11y ago
  That's what's so annoying. Everyone's having this big screaming conversation about something and using the words for something else, like they're working with some kind of bilingual dictionary. The entries for "safe space" and "trigger warning" got mixed up with a Sudoku puzzle, and everyone's pretending it makes perfect sense instead of looking for a better dictionary.
  - warfangle 11y ago
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
wan23 11y ago
The idea of a safe space is very much similar to the way a christian university might work. There are clubs and groups on campus that declare that the room in which they operate, while they are in session, as a place where they are free to be themselves. Like if for example, there were a meeting of comic book lovers and someone comes in and says "maybe you guys should get out more" they might ask that person to leave. And it also shouldn't be a giant leap to see why they might want to get people to stop saying that to them wherever they happen to be, and so they might call for their safe space to be expanded. The problem is that while it's perfectly fine to have small safe spaces in which everyone agrees, if you try to expand them around other people they might feel like their rights are being trampled upon.
- Domenic_S 11y ago
  > if for example, there were a meeting of comic book lovers and someone comes in and says "maybe you guys should get out more" they might ask that person to leave The story in the article is more like if there were a meeting of comic book lovers and someone comes in and says "your love of comic books is offensive and victimizes me because I don't love comic books, you need to stop right away" and then pulls the fire alarm. Having a private place where certain views are protected is fine. My house is a 'safe space' for my family. But to voluntarily enter my house and then tell me I'm victimizing you is just silly.
  - sanderjd 11y ago
    You are being hyperbolic to a silly degree. The story in the article appears to be about a private conversation between two individuals. Nobody is pulling any fire alarms, metaphorically or otherwise.
jonknee 11y ago
> Really? Citation please; I simply don't believe this. Most Christian universities that I have any knowledge of invite (or at least aren't averse to it) tough discussion, and allow for a pretty wide range of critical thought about interpretations of the Bible, how Christianity should relate to politics, culture, science, and many other subjects. You have missed out on the wave of evangelical schools that market to parents as babysitters. Here are some quotes from the OKWU student handbook: http://www.okwu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/2013-2014-Student-Handbook.pdf http://www.okwu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/2013-2014-Stu... > Students should understand that all traffic on the Internet on campus is capable of being viewed, monitored, and logged by OKWU View porn and you can be expelled. Might not want to search for birth control either. > Possession or use of alcohol on or off campus, contributing to the use of alcohol by other OKWU students, and/or being present in an environment where alcohol is being consumed is prohibited. Use, possession, purchasing, etc. of tobacco is prohibited. Note the on or OFF campus bit. This is where the evangelical babysitting really kicks in. > By virtue of their voluntary enrollment, all students, regardless of age, residency, or status agree to engage in sexual behavior exclusively within the context of marital heterosexual monogamy. > Gambling, pornography, immodesty, profanity, crude, vulgar, or offensive language, and disrespectful behavior, such as gossip, dishonesty, and malice are also viewed as inappropriate behavior for all students. The University supports the stance of The Wesleyan Church on the issue of dancing.
- ams6110 11y ago
  All universities (and for that matter, employers) have a code of conduct or ethics that defines standards of behavior and expectations. How is that babysitting?
  - jonknee 11y ago
    For starters it deals with banning legal off campus behavior.
  - DanBC 11y ago
    This one tells you how to dress (modestly), and not to dance, and not to go to the cinema, and not to smoke tobacco, and not to drink alcohol (even if you're off campus). A christian extremist complains about a student who had complained about a sermon, and says that viewpoints need to be challenged. It's useful to see if that extremist is a massive hypocrite or not. In this case it seems he is.
cma 11y ago
>I simply don't believe this. http://prospect.org/article/report-bob-jones-university-responded-rape-claims-woeful-ignorance-law-often-blaming-victims http://prospect.org/article/report-bob-jones-university-resp... >There were other systemic problems in BJU’s counseling program. The same staff in charge of counseling were also often involved in BJU’s disciplinary infrastructure—in a school where students could get in significant trouble for an astonishing array of infractions, from not keeping their rooms clean enough to going off campus without permission. Students routinely were expelled without notice. >In an uneasy mix of roles, Jim Berg served as both the head counselor and head disciplinarian. But the problem was broader than his particular purview, as victims described an environment where they were afraid to come forward to get help after being raped, because they feared being punished for breaking another rule during their attack. One student who was struggling with the revelation of her childhood abuse told GRACE she was placed on disciplinary counseling after she was caught smoking cigarettes, and Chancellor Bob Jones III attempted to impose an even harsher sentence of restricting her to campus for a semester. >Particularly harrowing was the experience of a student who alleged that her pastor had been raping her since she was 15, and who came to BJU officials when she became pregnant as a result of ongoing coercive sex with the pastor. But because she had lied about going off campus to meet him, BJU kicked her out of school. >BJU officials defended its comingling of counseling and discipline as something that made sense within the school’s enduring adherence to the practice of in loco parentis— the quasi-parental role that most colleges abandoned fifty years ago—but students described its effect as both chilling and retaliatory.
nmrm2 11y ago
TL;DR: If a student can't be openly and actively gay at your university, then you're running an indoctrination camp, not a "place to learn". > There's a stark difference between a free and voluntary association of like-minded people and a so-called "safe space" No, there defintionally is not... perhaps there seems to be a confusion over definitions. The fact that people want to expand the rules governing a particular safe space into a large sphere doesn't change the definition of a safe space. You can take offense with someone wanting to make a classroom into a safe space, but I really don't get why any non-authoritarian person would insist on not allowing safe spaces at all. Also, I'd be surprised if OKWU faculty/students/alumni don't try doing the exact same thing (expanding the boundaries of their safe space) by voting for fundamentalist christian politicians who enforce christian morality on women who use birth control, homosexuals, people who consume alcohol, etc. > ...which uses a pretext of "victimization" to capriciously thought control others who simply committed the offense of disagreeing or criticizing. What, like kicking someone out of a university when they realize half way through a difficult-to-transfer course of study that they're gay? Or that they enjoy square dancing? The harm that fundie universities like OKWU have done to students who disagree ever so slightly with their idiotic version of religion is demonstrable and significant. Your argument that students somehow "should have known better" is, IMO, fundamentally misinformed. > And this is evidence of what, exactly? That OKWU is a safe space and that safe spaces have always existed, but they usually function to shelter people who are aligned with popular opinion / cultural norms. You know, like social norms (e.g., not employing publicly out gay people, looking the other way when transvestites are assaulted, etc.) protecting homophobes from having to knowingly interact with the icky gay people. OKWU is a safe space for people who don't want to have to interact with anyone who does not subscribe to their particular brand of nutty American puritan christianity. It's a place where people can be openly homophobic and openly judge other people's sexual morality without being socially ostracized like they would be in the real world. Just in case my opinion isn't clear by now: Everett Piper is a massive hypocrite who runs a religious commune with strict codes of conduct while also appealing to liberal values. He doesn't actually give a shit about free speech or dissenting opinions. It's impossible to take someone seriously when they claim universities aren't safe spaces while also expelling people for disagreeing with a very particular and very whacky form of christianity.

doktrin 11y ago

Agreed. The parent was making a fairly disingenuous comparison.

intortus 11y ago

> "Safe-spaces", on the other hand, are cudgels of fear, handed to anyone claiming "victimization" to be capriciously used against people with whom they simply disagree and want to shut up. Oh please. Now who's fear-cudgeling whom? You're being extremely melodramatic in reaction to a questionable anecdote.

nightspirit 11y ago
"Safe-spaces" are practical application of the principle, accidentally unearthed by xyz-equality movements of the 20th century, that people generally don't like hurting others and hence you can control them by appearing to be hurt, whether you are or not. People modeling victim behaviors to remove everything that causes them discomfort aren't something to be afraid of, but also their cries for attention aren't something to be treated too seriously. Allowing them to get their way just reinforces further learning of this silly strategy.
- intortus 11y ago
  This dismissive explanation doesn't account for why stories like this are so attractive to the population of sites like this. It's like people are getting off on superficially demonstrating how emotionally robust they are (I'm not convinced).
  - nightspirit 11y ago
    I'm not robust, I'm just angr^H^H^H^H victimized by people who try to make me feel bad for their emotional issues. I try to explain that a) most people have little reason to feel consistently victimized, besides just a bad habit and b) this way of communicating isn't really productive.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

mc32 11y ago

If all self selecting groups would address the issue as exemplified in this case, I think we'd be better off. While I could not care less about this college or its mission, I'm glad they are confronting the issue of manufactured offense. Taking offence at anything which makes someone feel uncomfortable mentally/psychologically. People should be able to deal with the ugliness of reality as a matter of course rather than something which affronts them or something which calls their existence into question. Harassment, of course, is something different and malicious and should be confronted uncovered and called out, but simple discourse, antagonistic as may be, is something humans should learn how to engage with with relative ease, rather than recoil and become less able to deal with the realities of living in a complex and undanitized society.

nickbauman 11y ago

The real question is how could such a university like OKWU get and keep accreditation with this kind of regime? OKWU is essentially a religious commune masquerading as a university.

Retric 11y ago

Collage is often not a free choice for many students. Parent or guardians are likely to pick such places and students who 'wake up to reality' or 'lose faith' are a long way from voluntary association. Now if you want to argue about how narrow blinkers need to be before a horse is blind then your just missing the point. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blinkers_(horse_tack) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blinkers_(horse_tack)

warfangle 11y ago
You're right; a collage is a piece of art made of pieces of other art, rearranged.

maldusiecle 11y ago

Gee, think you have enough scare quotes around? There absolutely are victims on college campuses--victims of sexual assault, of racist acts of violence, of acts of intimidation based on their sexual orientation. I knew people who suffered these things. It's crap to act as if this is all made up. The purpose of safe spaces isn't to impose thought control, it's to allow people who have suffered a chance to recover. You can choose to enter one, or you can choose to stay out of one. It's purely a matter of free association. (Perhaps you're thinking of "speech codes"? I agree in opposing those, but it's a separate issue.) A safe space is nothing more than a "free and voluntary association of like-minded people."

belovedeagle 11y ago
The recent outcry against "safe spaces" has been against those established in public spaces and enforced with calls for violence. That's far from a case of free association.
- maldusiecle 11y ago
  For this I'd like citations. I'd point out, though, that even if a handful of people have been using the idea of "safe spaces" wrongly, that doesn't delegitimize the concept itself. If a few students are doing wrong in the name of "safe spaces," the answer is to argue against those particular students, not against other, unrelated safe spaces.
  - ForHackernews 11y ago
    > For this I'd like citations. I linked this above, but since you asked: https://popehat.com/2015/11/09/safe-spaces-as-shield-safe-spaces-as-sword/ https://popehat.com/2015/11/09/safe-spaces-as-shield-safe-sp... http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/11/how-campus-activists-are-weaponizing-the-safe-space/415080/ http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/11/how-camp...
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

warfangle 11y ago

There's a stark difference between what people who dislike the concept of "safe space" think a "safe space" is and what a "safe space" actually is. A "safe space" is a place where you know you aren't going to be singled out and harmed (verbally or physically) by someone telling you that you're a queer faggot and deserve to die. A "safe space" is a place where people can discuss the actual issues of hatred, bigotry and violence without fear of reprise for being the hated, the attacked, the marginalized. There's a stark difference between "This isn't a place for saying hurtful things; this is a place for talking about why saying those things are hurtful. That's why we're not letting you in here while you continue to marginalize the oppressed. Let's talk about why you think the oppressed should be marginalized instead." All the anti-safe-space discussion on Hacker News lately is truly, horribly, fucking disgustingly indicative of the inherent sexism and flat-out hatred that worms its way through developer culture. They are absofuckinglutely not cudgels of fear. And people who claim they are need to take a real fucking hard look at themselves and their views on those who are verbally bullied, physically attacked, raped, and murdered for being who they fucking are.

chrisdbaldwin 11y ago
That's a long way of saying "shut up."
- warfangle 11y ago
  That's a long way of saying "you don't matter."
mkrfox 11y ago
That's what's so annoying. Everyone's having this big screaming conversation about something and using the words for something else, like they're working with some kind of bilingual dictionary. The entries for "safe space" and "trigger warning" got mixed up with a Sudoku puzzle, and everyone's pretending it makes perfect sense instead of looking for a better dictionary.
- warfangle 11y ago

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

wan23 11y ago

The idea of a safe space is very much similar to the way a christian university might work. There are clubs and groups on campus that declare that the room in which they operate, while they are in session, as a place where they are free to be themselves. Like if for example, there were a meeting of comic book lovers and someone comes in and says "maybe you guys should get out more" they might ask that person to leave. And it also shouldn't be a giant leap to see why they might want to get people to stop saying that to them wherever they happen to be, and so they might call for their safe space to be expanded. The problem is that while it's perfectly fine to have small safe spaces in which everyone agrees, if you try to expand them around other people they might feel like their rights are being trampled upon.

Domenic_S 11y ago
> if for example, there were a meeting of comic book lovers and someone comes in and says "maybe you guys should get out more" they might ask that person to leave The story in the article is more like if there were a meeting of comic book lovers and someone comes in and says "your love of comic books is offensive and victimizes me because I don't love comic books, you need to stop right away" and then pulls the fire alarm. Having a private place where certain views are protected is fine. My house is a 'safe space' for my family. But to voluntarily enter my house and then tell me I'm victimizing you is just silly.
- sanderjd 11y ago
  You are being hyperbolic to a silly degree. The story in the article appears to be about a private conversation between two individuals. Nobody is pulling any fire alarms, metaphorically or otherwise.

jonknee 11y ago

> Really? Citation please; I simply don't believe this. Most Christian universities that I have any knowledge of invite (or at least aren't averse to it) tough discussion, and allow for a pretty wide range of critical thought about interpretations of the Bible, how Christianity should relate to politics, culture, science, and many other subjects. You have missed out on the wave of evangelical schools that market to parents as babysitters. Here are some quotes from the OKWU student handbook: http://www.okwu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/2013-2014-Student-Handbook.pdf http://www.okwu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/2013-2014-Stu... > Students should understand that all traffic on the Internet on campus is capable of being viewed, monitored, and logged by OKWU View porn and you can be expelled. Might not want to search for birth control either. > Possession or use of alcohol on or off campus, contributing to the use of alcohol by other OKWU students, and/or being present in an environment where alcohol is being consumed is prohibited. Use, possession, purchasing, etc. of tobacco is prohibited. Note the on or OFF campus bit. This is where the evangelical babysitting really kicks in. > By virtue of their voluntary enrollment, all students, regardless of age, residency, or status agree to engage in sexual behavior exclusively within the context of marital heterosexual monogamy. > Gambling, pornography, immodesty, profanity, crude, vulgar, or offensive language, and disrespectful behavior, such as gossip, dishonesty, and malice are also viewed as inappropriate behavior for all students. The University supports the stance of The Wesleyan Church on the issue of dancing.

ams6110 11y ago
All universities (and for that matter, employers) have a code of conduct or ethics that defines standards of behavior and expectations. How is that babysitting?
- jonknee 11y ago
  For starters it deals with banning legal off campus behavior.
- DanBC 11y ago
  This one tells you how to dress (modestly), and not to dance, and not to go to the cinema, and not to smoke tobacco, and not to drink alcohol (even if you're off campus). A christian extremist complains about a student who had complained about a sermon, and says that viewpoints need to be challenged. It's useful to see if that extremist is a massive hypocrite or not. In this case it seems he is.

cma 11y ago

>I simply don't believe this. http://prospect.org/article/report-bob-jones-university-responded-rape-claims-woeful-ignorance-law-often-blaming-victims http://prospect.org/article/report-bob-jones-university-resp... >There were other systemic problems in BJU’s counseling program. The same staff in charge of counseling were also often involved in BJU’s disciplinary infrastructure—in a school where students could get in significant trouble for an astonishing array of infractions, from not keeping their rooms clean enough to going off campus without permission. Students routinely were expelled without notice. >In an uneasy mix of roles, Jim Berg served as both the head counselor and head disciplinarian. But the problem was broader than his particular purview, as victims described an environment where they were afraid to come forward to get help after being raped, because they feared being punished for breaking another rule during their attack. One student who was struggling with the revelation of her childhood abuse told GRACE she was placed on disciplinary counseling after she was caught smoking cigarettes, and Chancellor Bob Jones III attempted to impose an even harsher sentence of restricting her to campus for a semester. >Particularly harrowing was the experience of a student who alleged that her pastor had been raping her since she was 15, and who came to BJU officials when she became pregnant as a result of ongoing coercive sex with the pastor. But because she had lied about going off campus to meet him, BJU kicked her out of school. >BJU officials defended its comingling of counseling and discipline as something that made sense within the school’s enduring adherence to the practice of in loco parentis— the quasi-parental role that most colleges abandoned fifty years ago—but students described its effect as both chilling and retaliatory.

nmrm2 11y ago

TL;DR: If a student can't be openly and actively gay at your university, then you're running an indoctrination camp, not a "place to learn". > There's a stark difference between a free and voluntary association of like-minded people and a so-called "safe space" No, there defintionally is not... perhaps there seems to be a confusion over definitions. The fact that people want to expand the rules governing a particular safe space into a large sphere doesn't change the definition of a safe space. You can take offense with someone wanting to make a classroom into a safe space, but I really don't get why any non-authoritarian person would insist on not allowing safe spaces at all. Also, I'd be surprised if OKWU faculty/students/alumni don't try doing the exact same thing (expanding the boundaries of their safe space) by voting for fundamentalist christian politicians who enforce christian morality on women who use birth control, homosexuals, people who consume alcohol, etc. > ...which uses a pretext of "victimization" to capriciously thought control others who simply committed the offense of disagreeing or criticizing. What, like kicking someone out of a university when they realize half way through a difficult-to-transfer course of study that they're gay? Or that they enjoy square dancing? The harm that fundie universities like OKWU have done to students who disagree ever so slightly with their idiotic version of religion is demonstrable and significant. Your argument that students somehow "should have known better" is, IMO, fundamentally misinformed. > And this is evidence of what, exactly? That OKWU is a safe space and that safe spaces have always existed, but they usually function to shelter people who are aligned with popular opinion / cultural norms. You know, like social norms (e.g., not employing publicly out gay people, looking the other way when transvestites are assaulted, etc.) protecting homophobes from having to knowingly interact with the icky gay people. OKWU is a safe space for people who don't want to have to interact with anyone who does not subscribe to their particular brand of nutty American puritan christianity. It's a place where people can be openly homophobic and openly judge other people's sexual morality without being socially ostracized like they would be in the real world. Just in case my opinion isn't clear by now: Everett Piper is a massive hypocrite who runs a religious commune with strict codes of conduct while also appealing to liberal values. He doesn't actually give a shit about free speech or dissenting opinions. It's impossible to take someone seriously when they claim universities aren't safe spaces while also expelling people for disagreeing with a very particular and very whacky form of christianity.