Navigating Trigger Warnings, Classroom Speech, and Public Debates as an Early Career Instructor

Some see trigger warnings, which are prior notifications about content, as a politically correct approach to education that leads to illiberal and counterproductive results. I have found that trigger warnings can invite speech rather than stifle it and create more conducive contexts for wrestling with fraught material. They can be especially useful for connecting with students who are most likely to “fall through the cracks.” In this chapter, I use examples from my experiences in the classroom as an early career instructor and “hate mail” that I received in the wake of the New York Times article to provide some guideposts for thinking about and using trigger warnings in the classroom. I then reflect on how my positionality as an early career instructor made what I had to say more important but also added precarity to my foray into public scholarship.