Students call for “trigger warnings”
Students across the United States have submitted several requests for “trigger warnings” on specific material assigned in class, warning that the content could be upsetting or cause post-traumatic stress in victims of violent crime and assault.
Bailey Loverin, a sophomore at UC Santa Barbara, was inspired to fight for campus-wide trigger warnings after a professor showed a graphic film depicting rape. Herself a victim of sexual abuse, she approached the professor to suggest that students should have been warned.
Several academics are challenging the requests, arguing that professors should be trusted to set their own curriculums. Many believe that these trigger warnings would simply slap warning labels on famous literary works. Some examples of books that would make the short list for trigger warnings are Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice,” which contains anti-Semitism, and Virginia Woolf’s “Mrs. Dalloway,” which addresses suicide.
Marc Blecher, a professor of politics and East Asian studies at Oberlin College, and a major critic of trigger warnings, believes these policies could have a chilling effect on faculty members, particularly those newer to the field.
“Any student who felt triggered by something that happened in class could file a complaint with the various procedures and judicial boards, and create a very tortuous process for anyone,” concluded Belcher.
Switzerland rejects world’s highest minimum wage
Swiss voters recently rejected a proposal for what would have been the highest minimum wage in the world.
Under the proposal, minimum wage would have raised to 22 Swiss francs – about $25 an hour.
Supporters saw the move as necessary for a decent life, but critics of the plan saw raised production costs and increased unemployment.
The trade union-backed proposal would have ensured that annual salary remained above $53,600 per year. Unions argued that the wage was necessary due to high living costs in Switzerland – one of the richest countries in the world – which does not have a minimum pay level, while less-affluent countries, like Germany and France, do.
However, business leaders and government officials argued that low unemployment rates and high standards of living for the majority population showed no need for change.
The proposal – was rejected by 76 per cent of voters.