The safe spaces debate is nothing new. It was going on during my college years and even long before that. In fact, today’s debate is relevant to my undergraduate experience and one particular moment that often comes to mind.
Even with some privilege as a senior executive of a leading research institution, I sometimes recall that moment when I am out alone on my own campus or with my family in an unfamiliar area at night.
It was a Friday night in 1994, during my third year of college, when two young white men called me a “sand n—–.” I was walking along the main street of my college campus, which was predominantly white and located in a rural area.
I usually avoided traveling this street alone because I felt physically unsafe, especially on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights when so many students were intoxicated. On this particular evening, I was running late and took the most direct route to my destination instead of my usual circuitous path. It was still early, so I thought it wouldn’t be a big deal.
This wasn’t the first time I had been called a racial slur; I was no stranger to being targeted for the color of my skin. On campus, I had experienced subtle and nuanced racism, but that had become almost routine and did not surprise me. Even being called the n-word was something that was no longer shocking. It was the reaction of the bystanders that sticks with me today.
Many times before, I had kept walking after being called such names, but that evening, I confronted the two white men. I said, “What did you call me?” We stood toe-to-toe for what seemed like an eternity.
I don’t recall much of the exchange. But I do remember feeling alone, fearful, and dejected – and I vividly recall the reaction of two bystanders. A white woman passing by admonished us to “grow-up!” I am sure she assumed these three “silly young boys” were about to fight. She was perhaps unaware or chose to ignore the racial dynamic. Meanwhile, a white security guard from a nearby bar witnessed the entire scenario. He told me afterward that he felt “bad” for me because the two guys were physically bigger than me, but he expressed no regret for their use of a racial slur.
People who argue against safe spaces today are often, although not always, the bystanders or offenders in situations like I describe here. They either don’t want to acknowledge that campuses are often “unsafe” spaces or they believe that people like me should be more resilient.
Yet, safe spaces in various forms have been with us for generations in the guise of honored campus traditions. For example, sororities, fraternities, and religious organizations – although often borne of a different urgency – are safe spaces that many of today’s safe space opponents have occupied. For this very reason, we must always question the motives of those who argue against safe spaces.
There is deep misunderstanding about safe spaces – and denying their importance is a means to protect power and privilege often cloaked in arguments to protect free speech. Rather than threatening free speech, safe spaces encourage debate and dialogue by empowering individuals and groups for whom access to free speech has been historically limited.
I often hear the argument that safe spaces shouldn’t exist because we need to prepare our students for the so-called “real world.” People who live with power and privilege in the “real world” don’t have to worry about the color of their skin when they leave home. Nor does the “real world” require that we pay to live in a community with people unlike us while managing challenging academic work.
The primary similarity between our nation’s campuses and the real world is that people of color and other marginalized groups are, at best, still treated like invited guests in the common spaces they occupy.
Our students are not in the real world on most college campuses, nor should they be. We have socially constructed our campuses to leverage the wealth of knowledge and information to benefit the academic and social experience. Obviously, many students pay an extraordinary financial and emotional toll for that experience. Therefore, we are obligated to do our very best to provide them with appropriate levels of challenge and support.
The fact is that our college and university communities are social experiments in diversity. As long as our institutions recruit people from all walks of life, as they should, safe spaces will be needed, because we cannot possibly control for all offenders or bystanders. Safe spaces are the least we should do to ensure the success of this potentially extraordinary academic and social experience for our students.
In the best case scenario, safe spaces are places in which students can be empowered to grow and develop. Safe spaces help students discover new ways of knowing and understanding by enabling them to fully exercise their own access to open expression, while they counter the effects of macroaggressions, microaggressions, outright verbal assaults, and racial and ethnic subjugation.
These students are not calling for self-segregation, and they are not excluding others. Rather, they are empowering themselves in communities where their disempowerment is pervasive. Other community members should not feel excluded by these safe spaces but, instead, reach out in partnership to co-create additional safe spaces and opportunities for the civil and respectful dialogue and debate, the growth and understanding, that are essential to our shared journey toward a better society for us all.
Ajay Nair is Senior Vice President and Dean of Campus Life at Emory University in Atlanta.