Not So Scary: Using and Defusing Content Warnings in the Classroom

Content warnings — notices to students that class material may evoke their past traumas — have become entangled in (over)heated debates about the role of free speech on campus. Critics denounce content warnings as silencing tools intended to promote censorship, preclude discussion of difficult topics or punish professors who hold unpopular views. Supporters too often conflate content warnings with broader demands for classroom “safe space” that fail to recognize the distinct features of posttraumatic stress as a form of mental illness. In this article, I reconceptualize content warnings as a way to facilitate access to course material for students with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). I then offer a set of concrete strategies for employing content warnings in political science courses. These strategies aim not only to support students struggling with trauma but also to de-escalate the controversy around content warnings by emphasizing how such warnings work to encourage engagement, access, and discussion.     

Dispersal of normal and irradiated laboratory strains and wild strains of the olive fly Dacus oleae in an olive grove

Studies on the dispersal rates of normal and γ-irradiated laboratory-reared, and wildDacus oleae (Gmelin) were carried out in an olive grove using protein-baited McPhail traps. No differences were found in the dispersal rates of normal and irradiated laboratory-cultured flies, or between males and females. The mean distance travelled by the surviving flies up to 2 weeks after release was 180–190 m, and by that time only ca. 13% of the flies remained alive in the grove. No laboratory-reared flies were trapped outside the olive grove. The limited amount of data, obtained with wild flies, suggested that they may disperse over greater distances than laboratory-reared flies.

---

Résumé L'étude de la vitesse de dispersion deD. oleae soit sauvage, soit élevée en laboratoire, avec ou sans exposition aux rayons γ, a été réalisée en oliveraie en utilisant des pièges Mac Phail, avec pour attractif une proté?ne. Aucune différence n'a été enregistrée entre la vitesse de dispersion des mouches (quel que soit leur sexe) provenant d'élevage en laboratoire qu'elles aient été irradiées ou non. La distance moyenne parcourue par les mouches survivantes, deux semaines après le lacher, est de 180 à 190 m. Le pourcentage de survie de ces mouches dans le verger, 15 jours après leur liberation, est de 13% environ. Aucune des mouches provenant d'élevage en laboratoire n'a été capturée après le lacher, en dehors des vergers d'oliviers. Les résultats obtenus avec les mouches sauvages, bien que plus limités, indiquent que celles-ci peuvent se disperser sur des distances plus importantes que les mouches élevées en laboratoire.