Understanding safe spaces in schools

Victor Restis emphasizes the importance of safe spaces for students, especially those who face discrimination. Today’s article shall focus on safe spaces in schools, which have become a respite for those who are continuously marginalized because of differences that should not have been a concern, if not for the deeply entrenched prejudices of others. Let’s read further to understand the issue.

Victor Restis explains that safe spaces in universities and colleges were originally rooms where marginalized students such as female, black, or LGBTQ, and others, could meet to discuss their concerns in a more private and more protected environment. But as time went on, the concept of safe spaces has expanded to include living quarters for students under a particular cultural group. Furthermore, safe spaces are also meeting places and residential halls where students of similar backgrounds can gather with other cultural identities.

Some people look at the 1960s women’s movement as having originated the creation of safe spaces, providing a protective environment for women against violence and a community to influence change, notes Victor Restis. A quote was attributed to activist and scholar Moira Kenney, who once stated that “Safe space, in the women’s movement, was a means rather than an end and not only a physical space but a space created by the coming together of women searching for community.”

The term safe space has since been applied to the LBTQ community, to which Malcolm Harris says, “where people could find practical resistance to political and social repression.” However, Victor Restis notes that the term has also faced criticisms in which opponents argue that safe spaces run contrary to free speech or blurs the distinction between security against physical harm and giving offense. Advocates, however, responded by saying that victims of hate speech are directly affected by it, and that safe spaces help maintain their mental health.