University places ban on ‘trigger warnings’

SCOTLAND’S oldest university has banned student ‘trigger warnings’ about potentially upsetting or offensive courses.

Officials at St Andrews University said the warnings were not used and the principal Professor Sally Mapstone has spoken out against them.

The Mail revealed on Saturday that Glasgow University students were warned about the ‘violent’ content of children’s fairytales.

But a survey of universities shows some institutions have bucked the trend – which critics say risks ‘infantilising’ students.

John Sutherland, Emeritus Professor of Modern English Literature at University College London, said: ‘You don’t give lectures anymore, you sell them – and the buyer has privilege of choice about what they buy. Snowflakery is just a convenient battleground.’

A St Andrews University spokesman said: ‘There is no formal process in place for establishing “trigger warnings” and university officials are not aware of any warnings being in place at the present time.’

Sources said the warnings had been ‘outlawed’ and in 2016, Professor Mapstone signalled the ban when she said ‘understanding the past helps us engage with the irresistible contrariety of the present’.

Dundee University and the University of the West of Scotland said they do not issue trigger warnings.

But other institutions do use them routinely, potentially to head off complaints from politically correct students.

Glasgow University students were cautioned about the violent scenes in works by the Brothers Grimm, who were responsible for classics such as Little Red Riding Hood.

The University of Edinburgh said the School of History, Classics and Archaeology ‘provides a warning for a tutorial in the Medieval Worlds course that involves discussion of a piece that reports acts of sexual violence witnessed by the writer’.

In 2017, the Mail revealed that students of religion at Glasgow University were warned that images of the Crucifixion – in Mel Gibson’s film The Passion of the Christ – might upset them.

Many academics tweeted their support of trigger warnings after the Mail’s story. Dr Christopher McCorkindale, a senior law lecturer at Strathclyde University, said: ‘Some law students might benefit from some warning that some content might be difficult.’

But Dr Stuart Walton, a senior sociology lecturer at Abertay University in Dundee, said: ‘The more we make trigger warnings the norm, the more we risk infantilising these adults who... should be inspired by universities and come to expect to critically engage with all sorts of ideas that are challenging or even offensive.’

Ban applause? What utter claptrap – Page 17

STUDENTS’ FAIRYTALE WARNING Uni says they could be upset by children’s stories ‘S

Saturday’s Mail