Stanford University has created a list of dozens of “offensive” words and phrases — everything from “American” to “you guys” — that it wants to purge from its websites, and even its computer code.
The list was created for the Stanford Information Technology community as part of the school’s Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative, whose “goal,” the document explains, “is to eliminate many forms of harmful language, including racist, violent, and biased (e.g., disability bias, ethnic bias, ethnic slurs, gender bias, implicit bias, sexual bias) language in Stanford websites and code.”
“Disability bias,” for example, occurs when people use “ableist” language, which “furthers the belief that people who live with disabilities are abnormal.” Thus, in place of the term “blind study,” Stanford suggests “masked study,” an even more loaded phrase given the recent controversies over face masks. “Crazy,” “insane,” and even “committed suicide” (Stanford prefers “died by suicide”) are forbidden as “ableist language that trivializes the experiences of people living with mental health conditions.” Don’t have a “stand-up meeting” or a “walk-in” barbershop, either; not everyone can stand up or walk in.
“Cultural appropriation” is also a big no-no. “Calling a non-indigenous person ‘chief’ trivializes both the hereditary and elected chiefs in indigenous communities,” says the document. “Calling an indigenous person ‘chief’ is a slur.” Don’t refer to an expert in a subject as a “guru” since that “negates its original value” as a Buddhist or Hindu term of respect. And whatever you do, don’t call “an indigenous woman” Pocahontas because it “is a slur.” (Fortunately for former President Donald Trump, this restriction doesn’t apply to Senator Elizabeth Warren.)
For the woke, all gender-related terms are a minefield, so the list rules out anything that suggests a particular gender or — even worse — that there are only two genders. For this reason, “chairman/chairwoman,” “freshman,” “gentlemen,” “ladies,” “landlord/landlady,” and a slew of other terms are banned. Be sure to use “pronouns” for “transgenders,” not the “‘preferred’ pronouns” of the “transgendered” because the latter two terms indicate that “non-binary gender identity is a choice and a preference” and “being transgender is something that is done to a person.”
The document also calls for the elimination of “terms that utilize euphemisms, vagueness, or inaccurate words to not say what one is trying to say,” which, of course, is the whole purpose of the list. “American” is forbidden because it “insinuat[es] that the US is the most important country in the Americas.” “Hispanic” (“its roots lie in Spain’s colonization of South American countries”) should be replaced with “Latinx,” a word most Hispanics hate. “Indian summer” should be called “late summer” because some wokester thinks it “infers [sic] that indigenous people are chronically late.”
To combat “institutionalized racism,” Stanford recommends avoiding any terms involving a color that could conceivably be applied to a human, especially but not exclusively if those terms have moral connotations. “Black mark,” “blacklist,” “white paper,” and “whitespace” are prohibited, as are “white team,” “red team,” and “yellow team.” Don’t have a “brown bag” lunch because, allegedly, some “Black sororities and fraternities” used to determine who was eligible to join based on a person’s color relative to that of a paper bag. Stay away from any terms that can be related to slavery, such as saying you want to “master” a subject.
The list goes on. “Black” — always to be capitalized when referring to a person — is preferable to the previously in-vogue “African-American.” “Beat a dead horse,” “kill two birds with one stone,” and “more than one way to skin a cat” are off-limits because each “normalizes violence against animals.” Say “Philippines” rather than “Philippine Islands” because the latter “denotes colonialism” — even though “some people of Filipino heritage might use the term.” “Prostitute,” as a noun, should be replaced by “person who engages in sex work,” and, as a verb, should be replaced by “debase” so as not to “unnecessarily [correlate] corrupt or unworthy purposes with sex work.” Avoid referring to someone as a “normal person” because it “results in the ‘othering’ of non-White people and those who live with disabilities, mental illness or disease as not being whole or regular.”
After enduring much social-media criticism over the list, Stanford Chief(!) Information Officer Steve Gallagher issued a statement Tuesday saying that the list “does not represent university policy” or “mandates or requirements.”
“We value the input we have been hearing, from a variety of perspectives,” wrote Gallagher — which is why the list, as of Monday, is no longer publicly available on the Stanford website.
