Safe Space Bans "Hand Gestures Which Denote Disagreement"
April 4, 2016
Daniel Greenfield
What do you do once you've banned dissenting speech? Why you ban dissenting hand gestures. Then dissenting eye and eyebrow movements. Then dissenting thoughts.
Imogen Wilson, the vice-president for academic affairs at Edinburgh University Students’ Association (EUSA), spoke out against safe space rules becoming “a tool for the hard left to use when they disagree with people”, following the incident last week.
According to the association’s rules, student council meetings should be held in a “safe space environment”, defined as “a space which is welcoming and safe and includes the prohibition of discriminatory language and actions”.
This includes “refraining from hand gestures which denote disagreement”, or “in any other way indicating disagreement with a point or points being made”.
Although the vote went in her favour, with 18 people voting to remove her and 33 voting for her to be allowed to remain, she was later threatened with another complaint after shaking her head while someone was speaking.
Yes, there is also to be no head shaking. Or any facial expressions whatsoever. And obviously the subject is a safe space for anti-Semitism.
She said: “At that meeting we were discussing BDS, the movement to boycott Israel. I made a long and passionate speech against us subscribing to this, on the basis it encourages anti-Semitism on campus. It was only after I made that speech that someone made a safe space complaint. I can’t help but think it was a political move against me."
Of course it was.
Safe spaces are meant to be safe for hating the right sort of people. The people the left finds worthy of hating.
