Much of the debate thus far over trigger warnings -- the flagging of specific course content that might offend or otherwise upset students -- has centered on anecdotes, some of them obviously controversial. At Oberlin College, for example, proposed trigger warning guidelines said that Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart might merit a trigger warning. The idea upset many professors who said labeling it as excessively violent could undermine the experience of reading the novel. And some Columbia University students' request that Ovid’s Metamorphoses be flagged as a poem about rape earned similar criticism. Supporters of trigger warnings, meanwhile, say students learn better in an environment in which they have been warned in advance of potentially traumatic content.

December 2, 2015 ・ From Inside Higher Ed