Dealing with students' feelings, then and now

College has been described as a hedge fund with a library in front, but it's a lot worse than that.

About a year ago, I wrote about how Brown University dealt with the hurt feelings of students thrown into turmoil because an invited speaker was going to promote the idea that male classmates accused of sexual assault should be afforded due process:

KATHERINE BYRON, a senior at Brown University and a member of its Sexual Assault Task Force, considers it her duty to make Brown a safe place for rape victims, free from anything that might prompt memories of trauma.

So when she heard last fall that a student group had organized a debate about campus sexual assault between Jessica Valenti, the founder of feministing.com, and Wendy McElroy, a libertarian, and that Ms. McElroy was likely to criticize the term “rape culture,” Ms. Byron was alarmed. “Bringing in a speaker like that could serve to invalidate people’s experiences,” she told me. It could be “damaging.”

Ms. Byron and some fellow task force members secured a meeting with administrators. Not long after, Brown’s president, Christina H. Paxson, announced that the university would hold a simultaneous, competing talk to provide “research and facts” about “the role of culture in sexual assault.” Meanwhile, student volunteers put up posters advertising that a “safe space” would be available for anyone who found the debate too upsetting.

The safe space, Ms. Byron explained, was intended to give people who might find comments “troubling” or “triggering,” a place to recuperate. The room was equipped with cookies, coloring books, bubbles, Play-Doh, calming music, pillows, blankets and a video of frolicking puppies, as well as students and staff members trained to deal with trauma.

But if you think suggesting due process for sex assault defendants is enough to put students in a tizzy requiring Play-Doh, just contemplate the emotional earthquake sparked by……….Donald Trump’s winning the election.

Oh the horror! Hence this piece from the Harvard Crimson a couple of weeks ago, titled “Harvard Professors Cancel Classes as Students Feel Blue After Trump Win.”

At 7 a.m. on Wednesday, Sophia R. Mammucari ’28 woke up to a phone call from her mom — and the news that Donald Trump had been officially reelected.

“I still had some hope that she was going to win by a small amount. And then I woke up this morning, and that’s not what happened,” Mammucari said. “I probably cried for like an hour.”

I wonder if Ms. Mammucari cried for an hour — or ten seconds — on hearing about the pre-barbaric mutilation attacks on over a thousand Israeli civilians on October 7 last year. The article doesn’t say.

Some professors also encouraged students to process in the aftermath of the election, adjusting course requirements in kind.

Courses such as Sociology 1156: “Statistics for Social Sciences” and Applied Math 22a: “Solving and Optimizing,” as well as several General Education courses — 1074: “The Ancient Greek Hero” and 1111: “Popular Culture and Modern China” among them — canceled their Wednesday classes, made attendance optional, or extended assignment deadlines.

The move echoes the aftermath of Trump’s first win in 2016, when professors postponed exams and changed lesson plans to lighten students’ schedules.

In September 1960, when I was in ninth grade, my 16 year-old brother was killed in an automobile wreck. I went to school the next day and turned in all my homework. Nothing was said about it by the teachers or the principal. Probably this was because no one knew what to say — death is not a frequent visitor to high school — but there was something else as well: It wasn’t that they were heartless, or my parents were unfeeling, or I was a zombie. It was because in that time, in that community, and in my family, even at a young age, I had been brought up to understand that you handle your feelings privately and, if you can, bravely.

Maybe that was the wrong lesson, too stern and harsh. I’ve often wondered. But critically, it was that same lesson that would help me keep my bearings later in my life — which, like everyone else’s life, sometimes brings grim or even devastating news. Learning that you can handle it with your own resources is not cruelty. It’s a blessing.

I’m tempted to say here that I’m sorry Harvard students don’t have that blessing — but I’m not. I can’t bring myself to be sorry for worse-than-childish self-indulgent brats. Speaking of which……..

Jack A. Kelly ’26 said he “was tempted to say ‘no’ to class today.”

“I had some professors that have been like, ‘If you need to not come to class, that’s understandable,’” he added. “This definitely takes a toll on people’s mental wellbeing.”

Throughout Wednesday, student organizations, faculty, and House tutors also offered chances to come to terms with the election results.

Physics professor Jennifer E. Hoffman ’99 wrote in an email to physics students and faculty that her office would be “a space to process the election.”

Still, I like to be, as they say, fair and balanced, so I must tell you that not all of academia had the same Play-Doh reaction, certainly not toward the students who wanted Trump to win. Hence this story from the University of Oregon, titled, “University of Oregon employee on leave after telling Trump supporters to ‘jump off of a f—ing bridge’ in Instagram video.”

In case you (understandably) think I’m imagining this, let me just quote it:

A University of Oregon employee is on leave after posting an Instagram video suggesting that supporters of President-elect Donald Trump should kill themselves, as first reported by The Daily Emerald.

The employee, Leonard Serrato, is the university’s assistant director of fraternity and sorority life.

I was too much of a dork to be a frat guy, but now I’m guessing that was the right decision.

In a video of the Instagram post, which was posted by The Daily Emerald, Serrato said, “I don’t care if we’ve been friends our entire lives, you can literally go f— yourself if you voted for Donald Trump.”

Serrato continued, “If you are so sad about your groceries being expensive, get a better f—ing paying job. Do better in life. Get a f—ing education. Do something because you are f—ing stupid and I hope you go jump off of a f—ing bridge.”

Well phooey. Where did all that liberal compassion get to?

According to [University spokesman Eric] Howald, Serrato is on administrative leave as the university investigates the matter under the school’s policies and his role as a public employee.

Translation: “…as the university waits for this mess to blow over and we can get back to the usual indoctrination.”

But here’s the crowning irony, one I couldn’t conjure up if I were ten times as creative as God made me (emphasis added):

“As a public university we take our duty seriously to provide an environment that welcomes diversity of thought and respect in alignment with our education mission. While we investigate, we are providing support for concerned students and employees, including resources for mental and emotional health,” Howald added.

You really cannot make this up.