While welcome letters from administration to students are run-of-the-mill events at the beginning of the academic year, students attending the University of Chicago received quite an unusual welcome letter. The aim of the letter was to explain the university's “commitment to freedom of inquiry and expression”, but gained extra attention due to it denouncing the use of trigger warnings. The letter outlined that the university does not condone intellectual safe spaces and encouraged students to espouse their ideas even when they are in conflict with those of others. An important part of this explanation was the distinction between sharing ideas and harassment: advocating for constructively sharing opinions rather than degrading others.

Some people found the letter to be a strike against political correctness and a stand for academic freedom. Others weren't as thrilled about the letter and found it offensive. Then there were a couple of freshmen who actually felt that the letter was unwelcoming. Following public discussion in the aftermath of the letter’s release, university faculty felt that while concerns about the letter were real, the whole situation was blown out of proportion.

Personally, I feel that the letter was interesting and shocked the system in a brilliant way. My main disagreement, however, was that the topic of trigger warnings was not handled well. I know there are things out there that people aren't comfortable with discussing, viewing, reading or being a part of. That does not mean that the topics will be excluded from the academic sphere, but that we should respect people's boundaries. Take people with post-traumatic stress disorder, or sexual assault victims. It's just common courtesy to respect these boundaries in an academic setting.

The University of Chicago said something important in the discourse concerning censorship and political correctness. You can talk about these concepts, fight over them, cry about them but you sure can't ignore them. So what does this mean for us? We live in a small, tight-knit community with people from all over the world, of all sorts of ethnicities and religions. That is a lot of people to offend regarding several different issues. Political correctness is something drilled into the NYU Abu Dhabi student from Candidate Weekend all the way to senior year. Dean Farley said we're all going to offend someone at least once in our four years. We try to fight it but the thing is, he’s right — unless you're an expert on the cultural nuances of more than 100 countries, you are bound to offend someone.

I experienced this first-hand soon after my own Marhaba when I sat in one of my classes and very confidently offended someone. I was quickly corrected and this became a learning experience. That is exactly what should happen all the time: to be offended or to offend someone is a point of discussion, not something to sweep under the carpet. Boundaries should be respected in terms of someone’s health and happiness, but avoiding offense altogether is in fact counterproductive to the learning experiences of college. I would much rather have someone come up to me and say, Hey, aren't all Australians really lazy? than for them to never say anything and continue thinking that. We are walking into some sort of Orwellian nightmare if we go down the path of censoring people's speech and behaviour.

I suppose there's another side of story more specific to our university. It's not that we don't want to have difficult conversations in class but it seems that we, as a community, love being offended. Sometimes the Room of Requirement Facebook page or any other NYUAD-related web pages become landmine fields. A missing Oxford comma, not pre-thanking someone for that broom you want to borrow or just any kind of post related to anything could be a potential catastrophe. This is when political correctness departs from being a good idea about not being mean toward different communities and starts to become an ego trip about correcting someone. I have seen people spend 20 minutes trying to decide whether or not to ask for or say the most mundane things on Room of Requirement for fear of offending someone out there. Seriously, we need to take it easy.

At the end of the day, I’m happy with the University of Chicago’s letter. I have my issues with it, but it's out there for me to write an article about or to argue about in the dining hall — and that's the point. We as a community need to listen to what's being said and take the next steps together. I hope classes keep controversy alive, ask the hard questions and say what everyone else is afraid to say. Stop waiting to be offended all the time, but when you are offended take it as an opportunity to teach someone something. Let's keep dealing with the tricky concept of political correctness and find the right balance. Yes, part of that balance requires dialogue, and I hope you do get offended along the way.