UCLA Faculty Association: Words to the Wise (are still not coming from Stanford)

On Tuesday, we posted about Stanford's Bad Word list.* As we noted, the very long list of words and phrases to avoid simply served to play into the stereotype of academia gone off the rails. (I checked the list and use of the phrase "off the rails" is apparently OK.) As we also noted, although the Bad Word list was initially available to anyone on a Stanford website, when it began to circulate and attracted first social media - then main stream news media - attention, it was put behind a password. By that time, the Wall Street Journal had re-posted it at an open website for all to see - and mock.**

With the public relations situation slipping out of control, apparently Stanford executives went into a "war room" (Whoops! - I should have said "situation room" because "war room" entails "unnecessary use of violent language" according to the list) to figure out what to do. They fixated on "American" being listed as a Bad Word and came up with a response, announced with a tweet yesterday:

Source: https://twitter.com/stanford/status/1605709699395223552.

The tweet leads you to the statement reproduced below:

Update on Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative in Stanford’s IT Community

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 20, 2022

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. This message seeks to provide clarification about some of the issues discussed.

First and importantly, the website does not represent university policy. It also does not represent mandates or requirements. The website was created by, and intended for discussion within, the IT community at Stanford. It provides “suggested alternatives” for various terms, and reasons why those terms could be problematic in certain uses. Its aspiration, and the reason for its development, is to support an inclusive community.

We have particularly heard concerns about the guide’s treatment of the term “American.” We understand and appreciate those concerns. To be very clear, not only is the use of the term “American” not banned at Stanford, it is absolutely welcomed. The intent of this particular entry on the EHLI website was to provide perspective on how the term may be imprecise in some specific uses, and to show that in some cases the alternate term “US citizen” may be more precise and appropriate. But, we clearly missed the mark in this presentation.

This guide for the university’s IT community is undergoing continual review. The spirit behind it, from the beginning, has been to be responsive to feedback and to consider adjustments based on that feedback. We value the input we have been hearing, from a variety of perspectives, and will be reviewing it thoroughly and making adjustments to the guide.

Sincerely,

Steve Gallagher

Chief Information Officer

Stanford University

Source: https://itcommunity.stanford.edu/news/update-elimination-harmful-language-initiative-stanfords-it-community.

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Again, the problem here - although not really for a wealthy private university such as Stanford - is that by playing into the stereotype of academia being composed of a) "snowflakes," and b) a center of Orwellian "newspeak" thought and language control - it damages an entire sector of society. The damage comes at a time - as we pointed out earlier - when public approval is falling. Many higher ed institutions are not as wealthy as Stanford and/or are located in states where the climate for academia is more difficult than it is in California.

When you cut through to the main point of the announcement - that "the website does not represent university policy" - you get to the main problem. The simple fact of life is that anything posted on an official university website, even with disclaimers, will likely be perceived by the general public as "university policy."

Modern technology makes it possible for folks who have thoughts about language or anything else to post them on various social media sites, just as in the past (or now), one might write a letter to the editor, an op ed, or give a talk at a conference. If Stanford's "IT community" had held its discussions in forums other than on the Stanford website, the discussions might have still been criticized by outside commentators. But the damage to academia as a whole would have been much more limited.

What Stanford's chief information officer could have done would be to apologize that some internal musings of individuals about language usage were posted in a place and in a way that made them seem more than what they were.

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*http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2022/12/words-to-wise-didnt-come-from-stanford.html.

**https://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/stanfordlanguage.pdf.

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