{"id":1277,"date":"2019-04-06T19:33:35","date_gmt":"2019-04-06T19:33:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.syyhoaxanalyzer.com\/?p=1277"},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-29T17:00:00","slug":"Did-Leeds-Trinity-University-Ban-Capital-Letters-to-Avoid-Frightening-Students?","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.syyhoaxanalyzer.com\/?p=1277","title":{"rendered":"Did Leeds Trinity University Ban Capital Letters to Avoid Frightening Students?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\nDisinformation<\/a>
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Did Leeds Trinity University Ban Capital Letters to Avoid Frightening Students?<\/h1>\n

A widely misinterpreted memo launched a thousand think pieces about “snowflake” students.<\/h4>\n
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\"Brooke<\/a><\/p>\n
Brooke Binkowski<\/a><\/span>November 20, 2018<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Claim<\/h3>\n
Leeds Trinity University banned capital letters to avoid upsetting or frightening delicate students into failing classes.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Reporting<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
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In November 2018, an odd little article about a leaked internal memo at Leeds Trinity University<\/a> appeared in the British tabloid the \u00a0Express. \u00a0<\/em>According to the story, the university told professors not to use all capital letters<\/a> in order to avoid “frightening” students:<\/p>\n

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Staff at Leeds Trinity’s school of journalism have also been told to “write in a helpful, warm tone, avoiding officious language and negative instructions”. Some blasted the move as “more academic mollycoddling” of the snowflake generation. An “enhancing student understanding, engagement and achievement” memo lists dos and don’ts – with “do” and “don’t” among words frowned upon.<\/p>\n

Course leaders say capitalising a word could emphasise “the difficulty or high-stakes nature of the task”.<\/p>\n

The memo says: “Despite our best attempts to explain assessment tasks, any lack of clarity can generate anxiety and even discourage students from attempting the assessment at all.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Other news outlets quickly got wind of the article, and soon think piece writers, evidently short on material, were jostling to be the first to offer their warmed-over take<\/a> on how jettisoning capital letters<\/a> is emblematic of the weakness and delicacy<\/a> of today’s youth \u00a0\u00e2\u20ac\u201d such as this story, which bears the headline “Liberal College Bans Capital Letters Because They Trigger Students”:<\/p>\n

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A spokesperson for the university said that the memo was written to teach lecturers better understand how they might help students reach their full potential.<\/p>\n

This isn’t the first case of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153social justice” lunacy on British campuses this year.<\/p>\n

In October, Kent University \u00a0adopted a list<\/a> \u00a0of banned costumes that included anything that related to an ethnicity or religion.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Unfortunately, it appears that many of these pundits failed their classes in reading comprehension as well as headline writing; even the original story, misleading as it was (and failing to reproduce the full text of the memo on which it was reporting for context), mentioned no ban.<\/p>\n

Leeds put out a statement refuting the claims, which despite being a perfectly rational response was mischaracterized as “a bizarre twist<\/a>” by some tabloids:<\/p>\n

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In response to today’s comments in the media which allege we have banned capital letters (we haven’t!), we’re really proud of our approach to teaching and learning at Leeds Trinity.<\/p>\n

Here’s why: pic.twitter.com\/yGXh9JABNK<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u201d Leeds Trinity Uni (@LeedsTrinity) November 19, 2018<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n