A few nights into Opening Days, freshmen filled a Science Center lecture hall to watch a teaching troupe spark the conversation on sexual assault. An announcement prefaced the show: should the performance’s prickly topics prove at any point too difficult to handle, we were free to seek out one of the peer counselors in the back or to simply step out for a moment. I paid the warning almost no attention, sat back, and watched with my classmates. Looking back, I’d guess that maybe a few students sought out that safe space—or, at least, felt comforted by the knowledge of that option.
A few nights later, an entryway workshop on mental health began much the same way. If we felt overwhelmed, we were free to step out. Ten minutes after the conversation began, I panicked and left and cried. Out in the chilly September night, I let the darkness hide my tears and felt the generous fresh air calm my lungs. And then I found myself at my proctors’ door.
Safe spaces, at their foundation, are not about “hiding from scary ideas,” as Judith Shulevitz charged in her recent New York Times op-ed. Such an implication disparages safe spaces’ ability to support students as they approach these “scary ideas.” To me, safe spaces are quiet harbors tucked away from the tempest called life, places we should feel free to go in search of unconditional personal support. They need not be as formal as Room 13 or the Women’s Center—I’ve found safe spaces in others’ empathetic ears—but they must exist. Such spaces are about meditation and mediation. They are about empowerment.
That night I found a safe space in my proctors’ company. We talked over what had exhumed my memories, how to reconcile them, and how to move on. This is how a safe space has helped me confront my past and attempt to be stronger for it. To be sure, I still struggle on occasion. But knowing that spaces like this exist—for me and for others who wrestle with things I cannot pretend to understand—has helped me continue to engage in important and difficult discussions.
I’m concerned that recent media attention has conflated safe spaces and intellectual debates. I worry that in our rush to condemn protests over contentious campus events (whether we are right or wrong to do so is another issue), we condemn safe spaces. As I think of them, safe spaces should not take over respectful intellectual spaces or bar reasoned discourse. But they should remain close at hand to help students impeded by memories or identity or apprehensions feel that they can contribute and understand that their voice counts just as much as anyone else’s.
The real world is no safe space. We’ve come to college because we want to make an impact on the world. Regardless of background or concentration or political leanings, we will find that agitating toward that better future will require difficult, uncomfortable conversations. As we try to make the world a safer place, we need to brave those rough waters. We need to accept that the world is not safe, and then we need to reject it and change it. Through all of this, safe spaces must have a place: we are all fallible and vulnerable, and at times we may seek—no, need—that judgment-free support.
If you have sought out a safe space in your time here, perhaps you’ll agree. If you have never had to do so, I am both happy for and envious of you. But I hope that if one day you should find yourself at a loss, struggling to stay afloat, there will be a safe space to buoy you back up.