Guy Whose Job Title Includes a ‘Harmful Word’ Admits, Stanford “May Have Missed The Mark” With Their ‘Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative’

by
Steve MacDonald

Last week we shared news about the Stanford IT department speech police issuing a language guide. For the good of the community until they walked it back the next day (something about the backlash after the Wall Street Journal took it wide) /snicker.

Related: Having Fun with the “Neurodivergents” That Created Stanford’s Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative

Clearly, there was some misunderstanding about the goals or purpose or, well, this.

 

Just days later, Steve Gallagher — whose title of “chief information officer” contains at least one “harmful” word — issued a release in an effort to set the record straight.

“Over the last couple of days, there has been much discussion of a website that provides advice for the IT community at Stanford about word choices in Stanford websites and code. … First and importantly, the website does not represent university policy.”

The master list of forbidden words “also does not represent mandates or requirements,” added the IT chief.

 

From the Guide:

 

stanfordlanguage guide - chief

 

Which makes you wonder if you can or should even listen to someone with a harmful job title. A problem they’ll likely find in abundance across campus and on the school’s websites. And while that’s amusing and invites complaints from all the triggered triggers, as with the UNH Bias-Free Language guide all those years ago (which also did not represent university policy), the word American being problematic was problematic for Stanford.

 

Stanford 2022:

Stanford Guide American - problematic

 

And here it is in the 2013 UNH Bias-Free Language guide.

 

UNH Guide American - problematic

 

 

I’m sure folks from the Dakotas and Carolinas will be demanding to say they are from Dakota or Carolina instead of being forced to say North or South. And it is, as you know, customary to ignore your country of origin and to claim to be from a landmass on which it is associated, with the exception of Australia, which is both and possibly Africa if you are talking to a US citizen or resident of the US who is referencing or identifies as African-Americans.

Talk about problematic.

We can’t, in all honesty, say the United States because we are anything but. That leaves the commonly abbreviated version of the United States of America, which is America, which is, well, you know, odd given that the same people who are so easily offended are encouraging everyone and anyone to come to America and be an American.

They even opened and or erased the borders to make it happen.

So, there are only “42 other countries” because those damn bigots refuse to open their borders like Biden and let just anyone in for government handouts at taxpayer expense (also probably US taxpayers). Maybe they need to work on their language and leave ours alone while we can still find someone in “America” who speaks it.

 

 

 

HT | The Blaze

Author

  • Steve MacDonald

    Steve is a long-time New Hampshire resident, blogger, and a member of the Board of directors of The 603 Alliance. He is the owner of Grok Media LLC and the Managing Editor of GraniteGrok.com, a former board member of the Republican Liberty Caucus of New Hampshire, and a past contributor to the Franklin Center for Public Policy.

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