God fuckin forbid the oppressed/discriminated against have a fucking space

[whatthehey]

37. People seem to be talking about differrent things here

I doubt very many want to outlaw all possible ways groups use to self-segregate so that there is no "safe" option available. If you do, you are a cruel monster.

I also doubt very many want mandated publicly funded separate spaces for all possible oppressed subgroups in every public university to prevent the slightest possible chance of hearing an unwelcome opinion.. If you do you, are an unrealistic idiot.

The problem comes in when we try to find a way people can self-segregate while still maintaining a valid educational environment and a realistically integrated diverse society. Oh and who should pay for it too.

Voluntary all-minority or all-female dorms? As long as neither notably better nor worse than alternatives, can't see too many realistic objections. Mandatory? Problem in a mixed environment where many will want to live around diversity. Carving out subgroups? Quickly gets unrealistic. Black straight vs biracial trans vs Asian gay etc. That way madness lies. Segregating instruction itself? Would be a grave disservice for people who are being supposedly educated about and for a society in which races, genders, sexualities etc are and must be mixed. So what kinds of spaces are necessary? What to be done with members of historically marginalized groups who prefer to be around an eclectic range of other groups? How do we teach about and for a world which will take many generations, if ever, to overcome all possible microaggressions (and it must be noted that even segregated groups tend to diverge based on what exactly is offensive. Feminists don't have a monolithic view on all pornography between consenting adults for just one example.)

I would imagine a reasonable compromise would, at least on larger campuses, be the availability of non-white, GLBT and female living spaces along with a shared meeting area scheduled like any conference rooms for other smaller/more specific groups to meet for discussion. But the education itself must remain universal I believe. If you don't want to be reminded of racism, how can you expect a course in, say, 19th Century US history to avoid it? Avoid it at the dorm, not in the lecture hall.