Academics

Barack Obama NPR Interview: President Continues Discussion on Oversensitivity in College

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For the second time in the past few months, President Barack Obama addressed the issue of oversensitivity on college campuses.

In September, Obama spoke at North High School in Des Moines, Iowa and told attendees of a town hall meeting "the purpose of college... is to widen your horizons." He said students of various cultures, races, and beliefs seem quick to organize and protest nowadays against public figures who share viewpoints that may be considered offensive.

Obama said there were people he went to school with who "infuriated" him with their views and opinions, which only helped shaped his own perspective.

Speaking with NPR in an interview at the White House, Obama continued that thought, calling opposing views "healthy" for students.

"As I've said before, I do think that there have been times on college campuses where I get concerned that the unwillingness to hear other points of view can be as unhealthy on the left as on the right," Obama told NPR's Steve Inskeep.

Since his Sept. address in Iowa, students at the University of Missouri organized to demand for the school system's president because of his perceived indifference toward racism against black students. Obama said that kind of activism is "a good thing," but that students need to be more open to what their school's administrators have to say.

More recently, a professor at Yale University decided to stop teaching classes because of backlash over an email she authored criticizing the school's policy on Halloween costumes.

"What I don't want is a situation in which particular points of view that are presented respectfully and reasonably are shut down, and we have seen that sometimes happen," Obama told Inskeep.

Comedians and public figures like Chris Rock, Jerry Seinfeld, and Bill Maher have tackled the issue as well. Rock and Seinfeld said they would not perform at college campuses because their material is bound to offend multiple groups of students, as is their intention.

But as Maher pointed out on his show, echoing the comedians' sentiment, students today are quick to demonstrate and petition and simply do not know how to take a joke, or accept certain material as satire.

(Hat tip to The Huffington Post and NPR for the story)

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