Just about everything Borat said or did was offensive to PC sensibilities.  Of course everyone knew that this was a liberal, Jewish comedian playing on stereotypes. The common refrain: “The joke is on the people who don’t know who Sacha Baron Cohen really is.”

But I remember laughing hardest with my friends at the things Borat said, not at the idea that he was tricking people.

“In Kazakhstan we say that to give a woman a vote is like giving a monkey a gun: very dangerous!”  

“I arrived in America’s airport with clothings, US dollars, and a jar of gypsy tears to protect me from AIDS.”

These things are funny because they are offensive. I think it goes back to Freud’s conception of jokes. Borat is a character specifically designed to offend every cultural sensibility in the 21st century West.  He says things that most of us would never dream of saying, or want to.  But when he says them, it acts as a catharsis that cuts through the moral seriousness and tension our culture has built up around political correctness and culturally sensitivity.  

Caitlin Flanagan mentions the pitfall that occurs when a comedian’s jokes elicit “the hearty laugh from the person who understands your joke not as a critique of some vile notion but as an endorsement of it.” That’s certainly the danger of Borat’s kind of humor. But so long as it remains and is understood on the level of the ridiculous, it serves a necessary function in society.  Laughter is one of the primary valves our minds and bodies use to release built up tension.  When that valve is suppressed or cut off, neurosis is more likely to develop.

Throughout most of human history, comedians have understood this.  Their role is not just to critique social structures with humor but to allow the audience a venue in which to release social and mental tension through laughter. The danger of the PC climate on today’s campuses is it assumes that all “offensive” humor is intended in service of some vile notion.  That just isn’t true, and it’s intellectually dishonest to say that it is.  

A healthy community allows a forum in which its most austere and sacred ideas can be made fun of. That’s something today’s sensitivity police need desperately to understand.  

Have something to add to the debate over the new campus PC? Email hello@theatlantic.com.

As Becky Liddle pointed out, this argument hinges almost entirely on over-the-top examples that have, in most cases, more to do with overzealous campus administrators than they do with student requests. It’s an argument of what-ifs and slippery slopes, not of data. Yet when presented dissenting perspectives, Haidt pretends otherwise and defers to the “preponderance of researchers” in proving trigger warnings' malicious nature.

This seems intellectually dishonest. Lukianoff himself stated that trigger warnings were barely noted as late as 2014, yet we are to believe that there is already objective, research driven evidence against their usage?

To wit, Haidt links twice to a 2014 article by Pacific Standard that has tangential linkage at best to the issue of trigger warnings. The article describes incidence rates of PTSD (relatively high, and having PTSD is hardly the only prerequisite to wanting trigger warnings) and extolls the virtue of exposure therapy—which to be very clear, is nothing the same as a professor bringing up a traumatic topic in a lesson. The fifth study loosely correlates to trigger warnings in stating the dangers of victimhood-based identity, but basing an identity around trauma is hardly synonymous with the desire to avoid it outside of a therapist’s office. This is very unconvincing data that Haidt and Lukianoff use to invalidate lived perspectives.

Given this lack of data, Haidt and Lukianoff’s arguments boils down to telling students burdened with trauma or anxiety that their issues aren’t worth action that the teachers personally find useless. The professors know better, it seems, and look, we have studies and PhDs! It’s a paternalistic and frankly condescending argument that ignores basic rules of empathy.

The interaction between Haidt and reader V. Reish says it all. Reish passionately argues from his own life, stating:

Triggers are very real, most are incredibly easy to warn for, and they deal with brain disorders and phobias, not ‘challenging ideas.’ I’ve been triggered since age twelve... The term anxiety doesn't do justice to the brain-simulated heart attacks a bad triggering can induce. If you can spare someone that with a throwaway sentence, why wouldn’t you?

Haidt completely ignores this personal narrative and cooly shuts the matter down:

If there was clear evidence that trigger warnings actually helped these students to grow stronger and more independent, or even just to learn, then we’d be set up for a good conversation... But since the preponderance of researchers who have weighed in on the issue say that trigger warnings are likely to do more harm than good, I don’t think there is any reason to use them.

The researchers Haidt cites here (the aforementioned Pacific Standard article) are useless towards making his case, so why does he refuse to find clear evidence from another place: Reish’s life, perhaps, and the obvious implication that many students are just like him? Why insist that he knows better about a young person’s mental state and ability to cope with trauma than the young person themself? Haidt is so unwilling to perform a basic act of warning that it borders on edge of preposterous. He comes off almost indignant.

It’s relevant here to cite Lukianoff and Haidt’s intro to “emotional reasoning”:

[David D.] Burns defines emotional reasoning as assuming “that your negative emotions necessarily reflect the way things really are: ‘I feel it, therefore it must be true.’ ” Leahy, Holland, and McGinn define it as letting “your feelings guide your interpretation of reality.” But, of course, subjective feelings are not always trustworthy guides; unrestrained, they can cause people to lash out at others who have done nothing wrong. Therapy often involves talking yourself down from the idea that each of your emotional responses represents something true or important.

Emotional reasoning dominates many campus debates and discussions. A claim that someone’s words are “offensive” is not just an expression of one’s own subjective feeling of offendedness. It is, rather, a public charge that the speaker has done something objectively wrong. It is a demand that the speaker apologize or be punished by some authority for committing an offense.

Bickel also added “one final note”:

An alarming fact from the research Haidt twice cites is that 6 percent of women in America suffer from PTSD related to sexual assault. This is an incredible amount, and statistically counts for at least one student in every class Haidt and Lukianoff teach. Despite your few extreme examples, these thousands upon thousands of students came your college to learn, not to destroy your curriculum. It won’t crumble the educational edifice to warn them before discussing a topic that will cause extremely unpleasant associations. They just want to know when to schedule their therapy session.

Another reader, Erica Etelson, looks for a middle ground:

Apparently, some students want trigger warnings while others don’t. Perhaps professors can negotiate this by asking students who want trigger warnings to inform them at the beginning of the semester of what types of warnings they want and then provide one-on-one warnings to these students rather than to the entire class. It’s a bit of a burden on professors, but not as much of an intellectual burden as blanket trigger warnings.

Another reader recalls an instance where a middle ground was found:

During my sophomore year English class at a liberal arts college, the novel we were covering had a couple passages that were quite sexually explicit, so when the professor mentioned one day at the beginning of the class that we would be reading through part of the text, each student a paragraph, and then having a discussion, we were given an option to just say “pass.”

Of course, the paragraph that contained the main character pleasuring herself in a very extended and explicit way fell to me.  I had no problem with us studying the book, no contention with discussing it, but there was just something weird about sitting around and reading aloud such a passage among a group of semi-strangers.  My heart rate skyrocketed and I started sweating like crazy.  I didn’t want to be the prude, I didn’t want to be the weird dude throwing off the mojo of the class, and I didn't want to make the class more awkward than it already had become.

So just I said, “I’m not comfortable reading this,” and the professor happily did the duty for me, and then continued on with the student sitting next me.  Was that my own personal issues coming out and affecting the class?  Yep.  Would I probably just go ahead and read it now?  Probably.  But after the class the professor pulled me aside in private and said he respected my courage to say I was uncomfortable with the exercise and did not actively participate.  I felt respected, the subject was still covered without a big complaint to the dean, and six years later I’m probably a lot more comfortable with that type of material because it was handled so professionally.

Should students chill out about comedians like Chris Rock?  Absolutely.  Could professors find some middle-ground with their students by acknowledging that some material is going to be emotionally harder for some than others and still cover it?  I think on the vast majority of cases, they can.

Thirty to forty years ago, I had plates of food thrown at me, I was thrown across rooms and kicked down stairs, I had a hunting rifle pointed at me in my home, along with many lesser offenses. The last straw was an attempted strangulation in my own bed.

I am also a beneficiary of CBT. At three different times in my life (late 30s, late 40s, mid 50s), I sought help from CBT therapists. Each time I stopped CBT, I thought I had worked through the trauma, the PTSD, and I was ready to face the world alone. Now and then, I would find myself amidst a discussion about domestic violence. Sometimes, but not always, a powerful reaction or flashback was triggered. When the flashbacks occurred too frequently, I sought CBT again. I learned that my irrational reactions meant I still had work to do.

About five years ago, I realized that talking about domestic violence no longer triggered even the least bit of anxiety. I felt I had finally put it behind me. (I do still have filled prescriptions for anti-anxiety drugs. Just in case.)

In response to reader V. Reish, I would like to say that I am concerned (as a mother) about the younger generation’s seeming display of “more psychological weakness.” I’m glad that no one of ANY generation is “ostracized for seeking help” any more. However, Greg Lukianoff’s point about “problems of comfort” makes an entrance here. It seems that ongoing and readily available CBT might make “psychological weakness” too comfortable and the client less motivated to truly face the fear (tolerate triggers in safe situations), do the hard work, and put it behind them.

And, to psychologist Becky Liddle, I would like to point out that the classroom IS a safe situation, similar to the situations in which many of my flashbacks were triggered.

I agree with the anonymous Ivy League instructor who mentioned she was raped.

I would rather read…and have…words wrack my soul than see books…containing stories just a little like mine, vanish from college classrooms. These are books we must read. These are conversations we must have. Not in spite of traumatized students, but because of us.

And: “It’s not just that VP prevents students from having to think about what upsets them; it’s that it prevents the most privileged students from having to think about what should upset them.”

Growth is always uncomfortable, often painful. Nothing worth it is ever easy. College doesn’t last forever. Sooner or later, everyone has to face the real world on his/her own. Life is difficult. Be emotionally prepared!

One more email from Jim Elliott, who recalls two spectacular stories on the subject of campus PC and plus ca change:

I found Lukianoff and Haidt’s essay a fantastic read. As a trained but not practicing clinical social worker, I found their use of CBT as an allegory for the use of trigger warnings inspired. I also agree wholeheartedly. Psychology Today has had a running theme on teaching young adults resilience since at least 2004 because of this very issue.

As a student at UC Davis from 1997-2001, I saw this coddling begin to take off. I spent a little less than two years on the staff of the university newspaper. On my first day at the paper, I found all of the newspaper stacks (they were distributed freely around campus) covered in ketchup with a sign claiming that the minority and LGBT community were decrying the paper’s “advocacy of violence” against them.

The paper’s crime? A popular satirical cartoon in the paper had run a strip wherein the hall on campus that housed the various African-American, Chicano, and so-forth studies programs was destroyed by an errant cruise missile that had been fired at Serbia. In the final frame, the chancellor was “quoted” as being relieved that nothing important had been destroyed.

The cartoon was a biting critique of the then-administration’s perceived lack of regard for such programs. The community’s response to that act of solidarity was to run wild-eyed, stage a sit-in, and demand justice for a “threat against their lives.” They did this, dramatically, by defacing every issue of the paper that day “with blood.”

The front-page story for that issue? A memorial for a student who had died. To this day, I wonder if any of those aggrieved students considered how their protest may have affected that girl’s friends and relatives.

* * *

Shortly after I departed the paper, David Horowitz (yes, that David Horowitz) ran a full-page advertisement “10 Reasons Why Reparations for Slavery Are Wrong.” It was, of course, intended to be inflammatory. It was also deeply stupid, but apparently the campus crusade for happy fluffy feelings was not willing to let its idiocy stand without challenging it with their own monumental acts of stupidity. The editor-in-chief of the UC Berkeley student-run newspaper apologized for running the ad. I was told she subsequently had a nervous breakdown after receiving calls from various prominent newspaper editors that she had no business being in journalism for doing so. The paper I had just left also apologized.

David Horowitz was invited by the Campus Republicans to speak and he accepted. I gleefully attended, mostly because the hot Republican chick I had a crush on asked me to go, but I wanted to see if his speech was as stupid as his ad. (It was.)

As aggravating as Horowitz was, he did not, to my mind, hold a candle to the aggravation of student protestors, led by the LEAD “slate” (short for Leadership, Empowerment, Activism, and Determination—a political "party" within the campus environment that dominated the associated student union. Their demands—no free speech for racists—were appalling. Their rudeness was embarrassing.

It was a relief when they staged their “walk out” before the Q&A session, letting the hall go quiet so a tall, unassuming African-American student could take the mic and politely demolish Horowitz in front of those of us who remained. If those loudmouthed boors demanding their recompense had remained and simply listened, they would have seen how a real adult handles a loudmouthed buffoon like Horowitz.

I have to agree with Lukianoff and Haidt: What are we teaching our young adults? Life comes with acrimony. You disagree with co-workers, with friends, with family, even with your spouse (or should I say spouses, lest I offend the divorced and polyamorous among us)?

I fear that in a seemingly-noble quest to avoid causing pain, we’ve lost a crucial interpersonal skill: charity. We are losing, it seems to me, the ability to assume someone’s fault is ignorance and assume intentional aggression instead. It would, perhaps, behoove us all to remember Hanlon’s Razor: “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”

At least we’d all be a lot less anxious.

Instead of learning skills and techniques to help people in need, we read thousands-upon-thousands of pages of material about “microagressions” and “microinsults,” often in “studies” that directly contradict each other. Instead of belonging to a community of generally like-minded, altruistic peers, we are all fragmented along every conceivable social fault line of identity politics, “social locations,” and “intersectionalities.” Instead of sharing what we know with each other, we often sit for hours in silence in classes so as not to risk offending anyone else in the slightest.

When I graduate, I fear that I will have no discernible, useful skills to use in the real world. What I will have is crippling debt. And an extensive vocabulary that I can use to label every slight and injury with staggering precision.

Another reader snarks, “Perhaps we should just give into these overly coddled college students by rewarding them with Participation Diplomas.” Reader S.G. presents a new angle:

Whether you oppose or support trigger warnings, I’ve rarely seen anyone address the impact they would have on classes where the curriculum is student submitted work.

Assuming trigger warnings are mandatory, what message does it send to young writers, painters, or musicians that they’ll need to provide advance notice of potentially troubling concepts in their work or risk academic punishment? Even if trigger warnings aren’t mandatory, it doesn’t seem much better to have a system where they’re “strongly encouraged” to the point not including them would be seen as a major social negative. We like to pretend the negative effects of peer pressure and social ostracizing are things we leave behind in high school. They’re not. They have weight.

Another reader, William Petersen, insists that the PC problem spans ideologies:

I have seen more “right leaning” local school boards dispense completely with history or science books that criticize the myth of American Exceptionalism, teach the Theory of Evolution, and/or try to re-write curriculum to fit certain Conservative or Christian presumptions of “what is appropriate” for young people, than I have liberal adjunct professors invoking trigger warnings to dampen right-leaning opinions in the lecture hall. The coddling, that Lukianoff and Haidt rightly criticize, is apolitical in many respects.

Another reader agrees:

Instructors do get some students from time to time who think they have the right not to have their sensibilities offended. This extreme orthodoxy emanates from both liberal AND conservative students.

This is not to suggest there is no such thing as “microagression,” but I think they are making a mountain out of a molehill. Some students are EXPLOITING this situation and creating an atmosphere of paranoia, sometimes because they simply don’t like the instructor, or worse, as a pre-emptive excuse for their own bad performance. I suspect some are just looking for an excuse to nail your ass with whatever tools are at their disposal. I have had these kinds of problems on four occasions— twice with black females, once with a gay male student, and once with two evangelicals in tandem.

I find the root of it is usually that they are disgruntled with their grades and want to punish YOU, so at bottom it’s really a kind of temper tantrum. They are spoiled brats and they know exactly what buttons to push. They can make your life a living hell and they know how to do it. This is the main reason I am retiring from academia.

But Greg Hom warns:

This trend to not allow speech is not confined to the academy by any means. When politicians try to disallow the words “global warming” or “climate change” in political discussion because it goes against their “beliefs,” they are contributing to this nonsense.

Another reader looks to literature and sees life imitating art:

In Ray Bradbury’s 1953 novella 451 Fahrenheit, he worried about society developing institutionalized restrictions on discussing difficult concepts such as race relations, sexual perversion, and political differences because they might hurt people’s feelings. The whole PC movement described in this cover story is a mirror of the speech that the “Fire Captain” made to Montag before he burnt the house with the hidden library of banned books. And the multiple screens on walls and in miniature in Montag’s house which enabled his insecure wife to be in constant touch with her “cousins” was Bradbury’s prescient vision of our overwhelming obsession in 2015 with Facebook and Twitter.

Another looks to advertising:

There’s an interesting article by The Last Psychiatrist that long-windedly examines the idea that Dove Soap’s “Real Beauty” campaign was not specifically crafted to answer any real questions about how we perceive beauty but instead to set up Dove as a voice of authority in that sphere. If we were arguing about Dove’s opinion on beauty, the author posits, it could only benefit Dove no matter which way the argument was settled because by discussing it were were making the assumption that Dove’s opinion mattered at all. By creating an argument, Dove set itself up as an important voice on beauty, which helped it sell soap. It’s hard to argue this wasn't effective.

In the case of campus PC, we see something similar but twisted into a new form. The administrations of the offending colleges could very easily settle the issue once and for all by simply rejecting the idea of microaggressions and by refusing to get involved in matters of free speech. “Discourse is important,” they could say, as everyone else does.

That the administration of these schools does not do so tells us something. They’ve set up a system where the students bring them complaints on a regular basis regarding the speech and actions of other students, and in those instances the school is expected to render a ruling on the particular instance of speech. It doesn’t matter what the issues are or how the school rules: the point is to condition the students into regarding the University as the authority on what speech and thoughts are acceptable.

This isn’t the University’s job, and the idea that we’ve allowed government-funded establishments to expand their power in this way should be objectionable to us.

Reader K.P. notes an example:

I went to a small private school, the University of Tulsa. The year after I graduated, they suspended (effectively expelled) a senior. His crime? His then-fiancé (a non-student) had written a rude Facebook post with some incendiary remarks about a faculty member and another student. The administration claimed the student didn’t act quickly enough to take down his fiancé's post and brought the rod of discipline down on his head. He lost tens of thousands of dollars and probably had his career prospects damaged over somebody else’s impolite speech.

Another reader criticizes a part of the cover story that hasn’t been noted yet:

In discussing disinvitation of campus speakers, Haidt and Lukianoff fret that Condoleezza Rice and Christine Lagarde were disqualified from sharing their perspectives. Not only have both of these powerful figures had more than ample opportunities to share their perspectives in the past, but commencement speeches are not public forums from which they are being barred. Instead, speakers are personally invited to confer advice to graduating students, however trite. If a majority of students do not wish to receive someone’s advice, they are free not to. Why seek advice from the abhorrent?

Yes, in the examples given above, the speakers would likely have had an encouraging word for females aspiring to powerful positions, but so would many others who happen not to be complicit in outright misdeeds. Is Dick Cheney free to continue to spout his self-aggrandizing evil over the airwaves? Sure, but we certainly don’t have to provide an audience for him.

Another reader takes a step back:

Up till now, I had been reluctantly moving towards giving up on The Atlantic; that it had fallen totally in thrall to the worship of every imaginable liberal piety, to the exclusion of all other sensibilities. So understand how thrilling it was for me to read this vigorous and well-reasoned broadside directed against the campus thought police, which basically accused the conjurers of all things PC to be suffering from mental illness, and to be endangering students with same.

Another felt differently:

I think this story was the final nail in the coffin for me for The Atlantic. I reread this a few times. I looked for the word ‘tenure’ to appear in the article. I did a text search. The word never appeared.

Tenure has been disappearing in the name of cost-cutting. There are some schools where the concept barely exists. You have adjunct professors, some with Ph.Ds, who are essentially in paycheck-to-paycheck, quarter-to-quarter jobs. The universities who employ them are increasing non-academic staff but cutting tenured professors. Adjunct professors don’t require health insurance. If they’re unpopular, they’re easy to fire.

To me, this is the real decline of American Minds. It’s shocking to me how such a basic principle seemed to escape the authors.

One more reader:

While I’m not American, I am a recent grad and it was interesting to read this essay and compare it with my own uni experiences. Many of the same issues are currently playing out here in New Zealand, though perhaps not to the same degree of absurdity. Great article, well written, interesting, informative, well researched. I was so impressed I even turned off adblock for The Atlantic website.

Thanks! Ads keep the lights on.

The piece warns that the  growing institutionalization of aversion to presenting views that students may find offensive or disagreeable deprives students of the opportunity to confront views they disagree with. The professor engaged students in a discussion about opposing viewpoints on, among other things, transgender issues, prompting one student to file a Bias Incident Report with university administrators. As characterized in the student’s complaint, the professor argued that “transgender is not a real thing, and no one can truly feel like they are born in the wrong body.”

The Bias Response Team contacted the professor, who responded that he was simply playing devil’s advocate to encourage a discussion amongst his students. University administrators encouraged him to avoid doing so:

A member of the Bias Response Team met with the professor, the report says, and “advised him not to revisit transgender issues in his classroom if possible to avoid the students expressed concerns.” The Bias Response Team also “told him to avoid stating opinions (his or theirs) on the topic as he had previously when working from the Atlantic article.”

Another Bias Incident Report with a second professor followed, and you can read about it here. If you know of any similar “bias reporting systems” at your college or alma mater, please drop us a note.

The original opinion piece argued that rich, white, well-educated, heterosexual, European, cisgender males (which I am dubiously part of) should not have a voice in discussions regarding social issues. While I agreed with many of the statements in “Please Stop Talking,” I noted that excluding people like me from the discussion is cutting out a significant portion of the population from debates that desperately need to include everybody at the table. I got called a “shitlord” for my effort, learning what that term meant in the meantime.

I’m glad I did not get called before the Bias Reporting System; I’m busy studying.

Another reader, Patrick: “Though its form and function is most likely different from the one described at University of Northern Colorado, the University of Chicago has had a Bias Response Team [BRT] since at least 2010, as a 24/7 response line.” From that link, this passage seems pretty mild:

Although the BRT can assist students in determining whether a violation of law or University policy may have occurred, and may refer students to additional resources should such a violation be likely, the BRT cannot initiate disciplinary action or impose sanctions.

In contrast, Karen flags what appears to be a far more expansive BRT:

Here is a link to a system in place at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. Although I am not a student there, I understand that the system is used frequently with some incidents remaining anonymous and others being made public.

From that link, the following passage is a bit startling:

The College has a zero tolerance for hate crimes and bias incidents and will act swiftly and effectively when such are reported. … A hate crime is an actual criminal offence motivated in whole or in part by the offender’s bias towards the victim’s protected group status. A bias incident is conduct, speech or expression that is motivated by bias based on the person’s group status but which does not involve criminal behavior.

Bundling together hate crimes with bias incidents? Invoking violent acts of hate in the same breath as microaggressions? That seems, as many activists say, problematic.

Here’s another reader from another school:

My alma mater, Washington University in St. Louis, has made a lot of moves on bias reporting systems in the past couple years. They introduced the Bias Report and Support System (the BRSS) in 2014, which students are supposed to use if they experience an incident of bias (though I can’t say how seriously it was taken by students).

The school published several summary reports detailing how many incidents had been reported, and on what bases. The reports for Spring 2015 and Fall 2015 show about 45 incidents being reported each semester, the vast majority of which were on the basis of race/ethnicity, though the reports don’t say what actually happened in each incident, and it is not fully clear what action was taken as a result of the reports.

It’s interesting that the vast majority of bias reports from Fall 2105, charted below, originated in the classroom—a place that typically has much more decorum than a dorm or common area, two spaces you’d expect more sexism and bigotry to bubble up. But no, the classroom:

From a current student at Wash U:

I have not personally been affected by the Bias Report and Support System, but if it counts for anything, I agree with the argument that programs like this only cheapen the value of a college education. There was an incident about the system that I found so amusing that I saved. Back in April, some students wrote “Trump 2016” in chalk on the sidewalk, which “triggered” some other students, leading them to report “bias." I will forward you the email from the administration.

From that email:

Dear Students,

Political speech and expression are encouraged on our campus. Particularly in an important election season, this is a time for you to be active and engaged citizens and to feel free to join in rigorous debate and discussion of ideas and opinions. At the same time, I encourage you to be thoughtful in the way you share your ideas and opinions, and to do so within a few university guidelines.

Yesterday, university administrators were made aware through the Bias Report and Support System of several chalkings that appeared on campus in support of a presidential candidacy and sharing some of the campaign’s messages. Some of these chalkings were in violation of university policies, as they were written in unapproved locations, and therefore were removed. We also know that similar chalkings have occurred at other college campuses around the country.

In any instance, it is important that supporters of any political campaign know they have a right to express their views. However, we do have university policies related to political activity. You can become familiar with them here. We also encourage all members of our community, including our students, to consider the effect of your messages on your fellow community members. Like the open expression of ideas, respect for one another is a fundamental aspect of our life together as a community.

Wash U, Evergreen, University of Chicago, and Case Western Reserve are just a handful of the “more than 100 colleges and universities [with] Bias Response Teams,” according to Jeffrey Aaron Snyder and Amna Khalid, two professors at Carleton College who wrote an informative piece for The New Republic in March. Here they run through examples of bias incidents from a range of schools:

All “verbal, written or physical” conduct is fair game [for BRTs], whether it transpires in actual spaces such as cafeterias and classrooms or in the endless virtual world of social media. Examples include “symbols, language and imagery objectifying women” (University of Utah); “name calling,” “avoiding or excluding others” and “making comments on social media about someone’s political affiliations/beliefs,” (Syracuse); “I don’t see skin color,” “I was joking. Don’t take things so seriously,” and “Thanks, Sweetie.” (University of Oregon). [...]

Anyone can report a “bias incident,” including “faculty, staff, students, as well as parents, alumni and visitors to campus.” Reporters may be “victims,” “witnesses” or even “third parties”—and they may choose to remain anonymous. That opens the door to hoaxes. Indeed, more than 20 percent of all the bias incident reports filed at one university during a single academic year were “pranks,” the investigation of which “occupied a great deal of time and attention for multiple staff members and senior level administrators.”

But the best takeaway from the piece: “Nothing quite kills intellectual exploration like the fear of causing offense.”