OPINION: University of Portland should help encourage discussion about politics topics, not coddle students
Students who have trouble sharing their political beliefs can blame President Donald Trump, according to a University of Portland political scientist.
Professor Jeffrey Meiser said, according to the newspaper’s paraphrase, that “hesitancy to speak about the election, even in spaces like classrooms, can be attributed to the precedent Donald Trump has established for political conversations.”
Meiser told the student newspaper that “[Trump’s] whole political strategy overall is to attack people and often attack people for their identity.”
“And so how do you respond to that if your identity is being attacked? It really draws out a lot of emotions,” Meiser told The Beacon.
For the record, Trump is not to blame for students not being able to discuss politics in the classroom. Reminds me of the lady who sued Indiana for its abortion restrictions, claiming it was affecting her marriage, to put it in G-rated language. Something tells me she had problems before.
Meiser and other professors and administrators at the nominally Catholic university provided other tips for legal adults to navigate discussing politics.
“You can definitely learn from hearing other people’s ideas,” Meiser said. “But when you’re feeling personally hurt, you’re not in a learning mode. You’re in a very basic, reactive fight or flight mode. And so there’s no learning.”
Interim Director of the Wellness Center and Coordinator of Interpersonal Violence Programming Erin Currie had other tips concerning conversations.
“Divisive conversations can put people at risk of losing their systems of support,” Currie said, according to the student newspaper’s paraphrase.
“You might lose your home, you might lose your ability to go to college,” Currie told the student newspaper.
Currie also said students “might lose people that [they] love.”
“It is a risk in some of those circumstances,” she said.
Psychology professor Lauren Alfrey also helped feed students’ anxiety with this quote: “Authoritarianism thrives when people are afraid and when they turn inward.” To her credit, she did say students could have conversations with someone with whom they disagree.
The university should look inward and figure out what it can do to help promote healthy dialogue.
After all, this is the same university that held a cry session where students complained about a Catholic priest on campus who objected to a rainbow pride flag in a residence hall.
This might be a good statement for university officials to release and to promote through events on campus:
The university is a place for students to hear from different viewpoints and learn about current events. Particularly as a Catholic university, we see it as our mission to not just educate students with knowledge, but equip them with ethical and moral decision-making ability. This may require open debates in classrooms about important issues such as the sanctity of life, human sexuality, and the common good.
Students who are incapable of grasping this may consider finding a different university, or maturing a bit, until returning to class.
MORE: Academia, student groups help combat Trump inauguration ‘anxiety’
IMAGE: White House/X
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