It was really fucking stupid when this justification was normalized in the 2010s and now it’s predictably being used to protect the hurt feels of donors and right-wing politicians.
A principled student said in a grad speech that the “only appropriate thing to say in this moment” is to acknowledge the “atrocities” currently being committed in Palestine.
In response, NYU is withholding their diploma + apologizing to the community for the trauma the audience was “subjected to.”
No one could ever see how the boundless expansion of “harm” by such indcidents of “trauma” and needing to protect people from that “harm” ten years ago could ever rebound on the people pushing it. No siree. Totally unpredictable. Completely unforeseeable.
May 15, 2025 19:50(On a less sarcastic note I never could & still cannot understand whose interest is being services by teaching/normalizing that students, etc. should as a matter of course be expected to be psychologically shattered by anything from being strongly disagreed with to being exposed to offensive things.
That is NOT to say they should be expected to just ignore it and let it slide. Not at all! It’s totally fine to be angry & to fight back against it. And it’s not to say being traumatized is intrinsically wrong/abnormal. It isn’t.
But teaching/normalizing fragility instead of resilience as the *expected*, typical response is just nuts.)
