Stanford University has been slammed after it released a language list that includes the word "American" as one of those that should not be used, as per a report in Fox News. The university started the "Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative," which is geared towards assisting individuals in recognising and addressing potentially harmful language. Ableist, ageism, culturally appropriative, gender-based, imprecise language, institutionalized racism, person-first and violent are the categories of terms on the website. Terms that do not fit into any of the preceding categories are grouped together under "additional considerations."
The guide said that "US citizen" should be used instead of "American" as "this often refers to people from the United States only, thereby insinuating that the US is the most important country in the Americas (which is actually made up of 42 countries)." The 13-page long guide is password protected on the university's site but can be accessed through Wall Street Journal's documents link.
The words "survivor" and "victim" should be replaced with "person who has experienced" or "person who has been impacted by," according to the guide. The word "abort" is also among those considered harmful, and the guide recommends replacing it with "cancel" or "end," citing concerns about the word "abortion."
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In a statement given to Fox News, a spokesperson of the university said, "Stanford's style guidelines are meant for internal use, often for individual workgroups. In this case, the EHLI website was specifically created by and intended for use within the university IT community. It will continue to be refined based on ongoing input from the community."
Bashing the university's guide, The Wall Street Journal's Editorial Board, said, "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?"
Billionaire Elon Musk also took to Twitter to express his disappointment. "This has gone too far, to say the least! @Stanford, what is your explanation for this madness?" he wrote.
