Education

Microaggressions Same As Assault, Professors Told

REUTERS/Ivan Alvarado

David Krayden Ottawa Bureau Chief
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What happens in Las Vegas doesn’t always stay in Las Vegas.

As The College Fix reports, professors attending an academic conference in Sin City were told to treat microaggressions like real assault and they shared the news flash on social media.

The microaggression teaching was part of the annual Association for Theater in Higher Education conference. The academics were immersed in a panel discussion that was supposed to examine how to make theater a “safe space” for non-white students. The education vision was not lost on its participants. Professor Shawna Mefferd Kelly of State University of New York Plattsburgh headed directly to Twitter to comment:

“Treating racism in our classrooms as we would an assault removes the burden from the victim and begins to create safe space,” Kelly wrote.

Penn State Professor Jeanmarie Higgins concurred on her Twitter account, quoting Georgia College instructor Iva-Kristi Papailler as saying, “Faculty: Treat racist microaggressions in classroom as you wd assault. Overtalking puts burden on students of color.”

Papailler did not respond to the College Fix but Dr. Mefferd Kelty did, offering this explanation:

“The tweet was in reference to a session on creating safe spaces for theatre students of color. Specifically, it was a quote from one of the speakers and to clarify: If we as faculty treated victims of racism and micro-aggressions the way we would if someone were physically assaulted, we would then remove the burden from the victim.”

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