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Reporting from Oxbridge: This is a real issue but actually most people have reasonable notions of free speech. It is just that the types that end up being welf

Reporting from Oxbridge: This is a real issue but actually most people have reasonable notions of free speech. It is just that the types that end up being welfare/student/women/minority officers are extremely aggressively attacking perceived attacks/hate speech/dissenters/traitors to the cause. If anyone remembers the Tim Hunt story and the witch-hunt that followed (and let us not forgot the role the Guardian played in peddling that), there was a situation where Tim Hunt was supposed to give a speech at a college. The women's officer was outraged and riled up freshers who where thoroughly convinced that a man accused of making a sexist joke merely speaking in a room inside their college was a violation of their own safety, a phrase I recall is 'The college is our home and our safe space'. Most faculty/graduate students/undergrads are actually very reasonable and want to hear dissenting opinions. The problem is just that most well-adjusted people quickly tire of outrage-driven student politics, so it's left to the ultra-aggressive types.

Baltoli 9y ago
I was closely involved in this controversy at the time and I can attest to the "loudest voice" problem where a small number of people magnified the situation far beyond what it needed to be. Definitely surprised to see a comment referring to it on HN more than 2 years on though!
- naturalgradient 9y ago
  It stuck out with me because it made me realise that many students were not at all emotionally well equipped to handle certain situations of adult life. A problem here especially is how quickly anything done by the university is framed as an attack on the mental health and safety of students. For example, in a recent survey, students were asked about their mental health issues. Examples of the university not being supportive enough were things such as 'I was not given an extension on an essay'. These incidents make me realise that a non-trivial fraction of this generation of students really feels intense emotional distress to a point of needing counselling over things my generation would book under normal aspects of adult life. In these cases, there is also little self-reflection on one's own responsibility to handle such situations - everything is framed as an attack.

Baltoli 9y ago

I was closely involved in this controversy at the time and I can attest to the "loudest voice" problem where a small number of people magnified the situation far beyond what it needed to be. Definitely surprised to see a comment referring to it on HN more than 2 years on though!

naturalgradient 9y ago
It stuck out with me because it made me realise that many students were not at all emotionally well equipped to handle certain situations of adult life. A problem here especially is how quickly anything done by the university is framed as an attack on the mental health and safety of students. For example, in a recent survey, students were asked about their mental health issues. Examples of the university not being supportive enough were things such as 'I was not given an extension on an essay'. These incidents make me realise that a non-trivial fraction of this generation of students really feels intense emotional distress to a point of needing counselling over things my generation would book under normal aspects of adult life. In these cases, there is also little self-reflection on one's own responsibility to handle such situations - everything is framed as an attack.