The bureaucratic innovation of “bias response” tools may be well intended,46 but they can have the unintended negative effect of creating an “us versus them” campus climate that results in hypervigilance and reduced trust. Some professors end up concluding that it isn’t worth the risk of having to appear before a bureaucratic panel, so it’s better to just eliminate any material from the syllabus or lecture that could lead to a complaint. Then, as more and more professors shy away from potentially provocative materials and discussion topics, their students miss out on opportunities to develop
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