I paid $120 for a 'safe space' workshop and got a lecture on tone policing

Last semester I shelled out $120 for a campus-run workshop on free speech and safe spaces, thinking I'd get tools for real debate. Instead, the facilitator spent 45 minutes telling us why we shouldn't question speakers with opposing views, using buzzwords like 'harm' over any actual policy. The whole thing felt like a script to shut down dissent, not open it up. Anyone else drop money on these DEI-style trainings and walk out less informed than when you arrived?

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valsullivan29d ago

It ties into this weird thing where everyone's supposed to tiptoe around each other's feelings in real life too. Like yesterday at the grocery store, a guy was blocking the whole aisle with his cart and I just had to stand there waiting, because apparently saying "excuse me" is too aggressive now. People act like any pushback at all is some kind of attack, so we all just end up staying quiet and nothing ever gets solved. Workshops like that just give people a fancy name for the same fear of conflict that's everywhere. You paid to learn how to debate, and instead you got a class on how to avoid it.