University Deems ‘American’ as ‘Harmful Language’

Stanford University released a guide to ‘acceptable words.’

And the word ‘American’ doesn’t qualify.

In fact, American is considered ‘harmful language.’

The university proposed adding the term ‘American’ to a blacklist with other ‘harmful’ words, stating that American is ‘too U.S.-centric’ and not inclusive of other countries.

The Orwellian language censorship is part of the university’s “Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative.”

“Instead of the words ‘American’, the University wants people to use the term ‘U.S. citizen,’ because there are other countries in the continent of America,” Summit News reports.

WSJ editorial: Call yourself an “American”? Please don’t. It’s on Stanford’s new index of forbidden words.https://t.co/SfU6mXoQsj

— Elliot Kaufman (@ElliotKaufman6) December 19, 2022

WATCH:

Stanford University has deemed the word “American” to be harmful language.

pic.twitter.com/gclBOoE8Sn

— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) December 21, 2022

Don’t say “American,”say “US citizen.” Don’t say “immigrant, “ say “person who immigrated.” Avoid “he” & “she” unless you know the individual’s preferred pronoun. But don’t use “preferred pronoun” because “that suggests non-binary gender identity is a choice.” 😵‍💫@Stanford pic.twitter.com/QdB3O20wDH

— Christina Hoff Sommers (@CHSommers) December 20, 2022

Summit News reported:

The University has eight categories of language policing. They are “Ableist, Ageism, Culturally Appropriative, Gender-based, Imprecise Language, Institutionalized Racism, Person-First, and Violent.”

They have Newspeak suggestions for every ‘offensive’ word and phrase they can think of in those categories.

It is literally 1984 come to life, with Stanford setting itself up as Thinkpol.

Other suggestions Stanford makes for word replacements are “handicap parking,” “addict,” and “Karen,” to be changed to “accessible parking,” “person with a substance abuse disorder,” and “demanding or entitled White woman.”

You read that right. You can’t say Karen now.

As this Wall Street Journal opinion piece noted, the university’s index of forbidden words resembles a parody.

Parodists have it rough these days, since so much of modern life and culture resembles the Babylon Bee. The latest evidence is that Stanford University administrators in May published an index of forbidden words to be eliminated from the school’s websites and computer code, and provided inclusive replacements to help re-educate the benighted.

Call yourself an “American”? Please don’t. Better to say “U.S. citizen,” per the bias hunters, lest you slight the rest of the Americas. “Immigrant” is also out, with “person who has immigrated” as the approved alternative. It’s the iron law of academic writing: Why use one word when four will do?

It appears the ‘harmful language’ guide has received significant pushback.

According to Fox News, the university limited access to the guide to individuals with an internal login.

Stanford University locked a “harmful language” guide that outlined words and phrases it planned to eliminate from its website and computer code, limiting access to only people with an internal login.

The Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative is a Stanford University project that was announced in May, and aims to “address harmful language in IT at Stanford,” according to the website.

According to the guide, its goal is to eliminate “many forms of harmful language,” which includes “racist, violent, and biased (e.g., disability bias, ethnic bias, ethnic slurs, gender bias, implicit bias, sexual bias) language” that is in the Stanford website and codes, and also aims to educate others on the impacts words can have.

After pushback from the guide, Stanford University made the webpage accessible to only people with an internal login.