University labelled 'woke' after giving students trigger warnings for chocolate addiction
One student said the warnings were so elaborate they had tipped into “farce”
A British university has given students trigger warnings for chocolate, smoking and anger in recent lectures.
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Students at the University of Roehampton in south-west London are being shown “content warning” slides before lectures.
In a recent example, students were cautioned that their lecture would include references to “smoking, passive smoking”, “sexual organs”, “anger”, “quality of parent-child relationships” and even “chocolate addiction”.
Second-year student Octavia Evans said the warnings were so elaborate they had tipped into “farce”.
“As a long-suffering chocoholic, I appreciate my lecturers’ concern for my sanity – and waistline – but come on.
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“It made me wonder: if a student had actually objected, claiming discussion of chocolate addiction was too much to endure, would the lecture have been stopped?
"Or would the university gently remind us that, while it is committed to wellbeing and inclusivity, the material is nonetheless essential? I fear the former," Evans told the Telegraph.
The Roehampton student said the spread of so-called trigger warnings reflected a wider culture across universities in which protecting students from discomfort too often appears to take precedence over intellectual challenge.
She continued: “Of course, some topics warrant care. Bereavement, mental illness and disability are not trivial matters.
"Yet at Roehampton, these now sit alongside warnings that lectures may include ‘reports of friends having mental health difficulties’, or material that ‘might relate to issues you have experienced or about which you hold strong views’.
“In other words, the warning is no longer tied to specific triggers, but to the possibility that almost any idea might feel personally affecting.”
She added that the culture of caution did not exist in isolation, but coincided with broader changes in student life.
“At Roehampton, as at most universities in Britain, ‘summary of adjustments’ and ‘extenuating circumstances’ allowances are increasingly common,” she said.
“Many students receiving them do so in good faith, but they now seem so widespread that they feel less like exceptions and more like a routine feature of university life.”
In another seminar, students were warned they might encounter “views that you disagree with” — something Evans said had been presented as a “potential hazard” rather than a basic condition of higher education.
Critics have pointed to similar examples elsewhere.
The University of Sheffield faced backlash after warned students about violence and murder in the Bible, including the crucifixion of Christ.
Guidance for students noted that the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John contain descriptions of “graphic bodily injury and sexual violence” in accounts of the events leading up to Jesus’s death.
Christians and historians criticised the warnings as “misguided”, “absurd” and incompatible with serious discussion of morality.
Last year, Roehampton was ranked 92nd in Civitas’s university “woke” league table.
A University of Roehampton spokesman said: “The University of Roehampton is committed to an inclusive working and learning environment. As a matter of good practice, students are provided with advance information about course content.”