During this year’s fall orientation week at Carleton, discussions of safe space are inevitable, important, and possibly the first time some students have heard the term. So, if you’re confused about safe space means, or why it’s important, this guide is here to give you the 411 on everything safe space-related.
What is safe space?
Safe spaces are areas that foster free expression of opinions, feelings, and thoughts about cultural competence and diversity without judgement. In safe spaces, norms and stereotypes are to be set aside, and individuality freely allowed and expressed. Safe spaces encourage a welcoming community and an atmosphere of safety and belonging, according to Shannon Mulligan, the Carleton Graduate Students’ Association sexual assault outreach coordinator.
Mulligan also said the role safe space plays in protecting members of the Carleton community is immeasurable.
“Safe spaces protect students from having to disclose their experiences or identities while simultaneously allowing for that disclosure,” Mulligan said. “When safe spaces exist, students don’t have to explain the violence or trauma they’ve experienced in order to access feeling safe—for instance, by requesting trigger warnings for specific content.”
Mulligan said safe spaces also help in community building.
“When we work together to give everyone a little compassion, we can learn more about each other and how we can work together to make a safer, happier campus for everyone,” Mulligan said.
“Safe spaces allow for us to have really difficult conversations that we wouldn’t otherwise have,” Mulligan said.
Smita Bharadia, the equity advisor responsible for the Carleton Safe Space Program offered by Equity Services, said safe spaces at Carleton strive to respect the dignity of all individuals and enhance their abilities to participate in education and employment at the university.
“Equality and the recognition of diversity among faculty, students, staff, and associated professionals are sources of human excellence, cultural enrichment, and social strength,” Bharadia said.
Misconceptions about safe space
According to Mulligan, a common misconception is that safe space policies cause individuals to infantilize themselves by allowing them to avoid the real world.
“Safe spaces allow students to prepare themselves for conversations that might bring up difficult experiences they have had in the past. In this sense, they are not hiding from reality. Rather, they are confronting, addressing, and challenging it in an effort to transform it,” Mulligan said.
By creating comfortable spaces for everyone through fostering a spirit of kindness, understanding, and compassion, Mulligan said safe spaces allow for vulnerability rather than infantilization and weakness.
“The pull-up-your-bootstraps-and-toughen-up mentality reflected in the argument that students are infantilizing themselves when requesting safe spaces is exactly what safe spaces seek to address in the first place,” Mulligan said.
Another common criticism of safe spaces is they limit free speech by not allowing hostile, marginalizing, or oppressive speech, but according to Mulligan, this is not the case.
“There is a difference between free speech and hate speech,” Mulligan said. “Often this argument against safe space is made to protect people in power who are enacting violence. Much violence has gone unchecked in the name of free speech.”
Mulligan said this argument often comes from people who are unwilling to challenge their own experiences of privilege.
“[People] usually make this argument when they just don’t feel like changing the way they talk or act,” Mulligan said.
By preserving every person’s self-respect and dignity, safe space adds important, otherwise marginalized and underrepresented voices to conversations. In this way, the initiative actually builds a more meaningful level of free speech, according to Mulligan.
What can we do?
In doing our best to protect the emotional and psychological health of our peers, we encourage the growth of diverse perspectives within our campus.
“The idea of safe spaces exists because the campus is inherently unsafe for those who do not fit into, or more accurately, are violently pushed out of, mainstream spaces,” Mulligan said. “Students should recognize that they are entitled to demand personal and collective safety on campus.”
One major way we can help foster safe spaces is through learning about them.
“The Consent Culture Committee, formerly the No Means No committee, is a great opportunity to get involved in campus politics and activism,” Mulligan said.
The Carleton University Students’ Association also offers free safe(r) space training for service centres, clubs, staff, and more.
Another way to help is through the Carleton University Safe Space Program, an interactive workshop that aims to reduce homophobia and heterosexism on campus, and remove discrimination and oppression from campus, according to Bharadia.
“Carleton wants students, staff, and faculty to continue to sign up for the Carleton University Safe Space Program, become allies who are knowledgeable of resources on and off campus, supportive, and become active witnesses when they become aware of oppression,” Bharadia said.
