UNIVERSITY students have been given a trigger warning about JK Rowling’s first Harry Potter book — often read by primary school kids.
It tells them it could raise “difficult conversations about gender, race, sexuality, class, and identity”.
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And they are urged to raise concerns if they have issues with topics in the boy wizard’s story.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone is one of the three set texts for English freshers at the University of Chester.
The others are Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games and Philip Pullman’s Northern Lights.
Students are told to seek out lecturer Dr Richard Leahy if they find the books upsetting.
The trigger warning says: “Although we are studying a selection of Young Adult texts, the nature of the theories we apply to them can lead to some difficult conversations.”
Toby Young, of the Free Speech Union, hit out, saying: “Harry Potter books teach children the importance of resilience. A trigger warning sends the opposite message.”
The university says it “promotes rather than avoids” discussing tricky issues.
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