Marco_palmezzano,_crocifissione_degli_UffiziThe new catchword on campuses is “triggering.”  Universities now warn students about any possible “trigger” that might upset them in curriculum or even faculty lectures.  Monash University now issues triggering warnings for courses like Surgeon General warnings on a pack of cigarettes.   At the University of Glasgow, theology students are being warned in advance that, in courses dealing with Christ, they may see distressing images of crucifixion.

Clockwork_orangeAAt Monash, students are warned if class discussion might raise issues of sexual assault, violence, domestic abuse, child abuse, eating disorders, self-harm, suicide, pornography, abortion, kidnapping, hate speech, animal cruelty and animal deaths including slaughterhouses.  It is hard to imagine a course that does not touch on an issue of “violence” or possible “hate speech”, particularly with the ever widening definition of hate speech and microaggressions.  Even English classes deal with slaughterhouses in works like The Jungle or Animal Farm.  You will find violence in works ranging from War and Peace to The Great Gatsby.  Indeed, Clockwork Orange is triggering from front to end.

It is hard to imagine a law class that did not hit at least a couple of these categories.  Even civil procedure can deal with violent or abusive or hateful subjects.  For torts and criminal law, the warning could be a virtual syllabus for the term.

There is rising criticism over the catering to what has become known derisively as the “Snowflake” generation of students.  That concern was magnified with the trigger warnings placed on the Glasgow court of “Creation to Apocalypse: Introduction to the Bible (Level 1).”  It would be rather difficult to study Christ if you are triggered by references to crucifixion.  It is a bit central to the story.

At Stirling University, there are trigger warnings in an archeology courses for students who would be triggered by . . .  you guessed it  . . . archeological finds like preserved bodies.  The university warns “We cannot anticipate or exclude the possibility that you may encounter material which is triggering [ie, which can trigger a negative reaction] and we urge that you take all necessary precautions to look after yourself in and around the programme.”


  1. Everything for this new generation is upside down! Colleges are supposedly “coddling” them, but – meanwhile, in middle school – they’re required to read “coming of age” books that feature raped, and persecuted teen protagonists who are seriously contemplating their own deaths as an escape from their lives of non-stop abuse. What exactly is the point these “educators” are trying to deliver to the next generation? “Be terrified at all times, because life is a living hell?” I think it’s the unresolved pathos of these idiot baby boomers that compels them to try to project onto the next generation. Maybe just too much acid.

    1. Debbie, I think you are talking about “13 reasons why” which I thought was an incredible film series – we cannot even begin to imagine what it’s like to be tween/teen these days. So yes most often it is the adults who keep them in perpetual infancy but we also need to realize that it is a “brave new world”

      1. “Perpetual infancy” my ass! I wasn’t talking about “13 Reasons Why.” That piece of schlock is just one example of the genre though: 12-year-olds are given the Clockwork Orange treatment by sick baby boomers who are masturbatorily inflate and romanticize their own teen “trials and tribulations.” My stars! What a “Brave New World!” BS! The problems today are no greater than those in every generation. The only difference now is that baby boomers think they have the “insight” to deliberately and forcibly “expose” their offspring “for their own good.” It’s just more of their self-involved dime-store-psychiatric malpractice.

    2. Our president is a spoiled toddler and he is older than dirt. How did that happen?

      1. because the Dims ran HRC against him rather than Bernie. And arguably HRC is the spoiled toddler – ran away and hid before finally emerging to admit defeat.

      2. Francesca,
        Hillary is one year younger than Trump.
        There wasn’t a lot of choice for general election voters looking for a “younger than dirt” candidate.
        Also, that “lesser of two evils” crap didn’t sell well enough to put Hillary over the top.
        There will probably be endless post mortems on why she lost.
        But them Ruskies probably got Trump elected.😏

  2. Karen, “couldn’t wait for adulthood and independence”. Whose going To do my wash?

  3. I’m really not sure what this article is about, maybe it should have been called “Trigger warning: this article contains no content.”

  4. (music to the tune of Give Me That Old Time Religion)
    It was good enough for Jesus.
    If good enough for Jesus, its good enough for me.
    Give me death by crucifixan, give me death by crucifixon…
    Or drop me in the sea.


    1. Better prepare phony uteri for these babies when they are born so they can crawl back in them anytime anything changes in their lives.

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