Stanford cautions against saying ‘American’ in newspeak advisory

Stanford University is advising people to change their vocabulary to avoid “harmful language" including the word “American”. The university published a list of semantics for people to follow as part of its Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative (EHLI) which it began in 2020. 

“The goal of the Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative 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,” writes Stanford in its EHLI missive. 

The list is sectioned into categories, the first of which is “Ableist”. People are told not to use the term “committed suicide,” for instance, because it is “Ableist language that trivializes the experiences of people living with mental health conditions.” The term “basket case” should also not be used, because it “Originally referred to one who has lost all four limbs and therefore needed to be carried around in a basket.” 

“Blind study” and “blind review” are similarly discouraged. 

To avoid sounding ageist, a person should steer clear of the word “senile”. 

To avoid sounding colonialist, a person should refrain from saying “Philippine Islands,” and instead say “Philippines”. 

Suggesting a “pow wow” is harmful because it “demeans a term of cultural significance to Indigenous peoples.” The same goes for the terms “brave," “chief” and “on the war path”. 

The list also contains a more general category titled Imprecise Language. Among the harmful terms included in that category is the term “American”. 

“This term 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),” says Stanford, which recommends saying “U.S. citizen” instead. 

Rather than use the word “abort,” say “cancel” or “end”. 

Rather than say “child prostitute,” say “child who has been trafficked.” 

The university also cautions against using the word “Hispanic”. Instead, one should say “Latinx,” a racist term considered offensive by most Hispanics. 

Instead of referring to someone as an internet “user,” one should say “client” to avoid an association with those who abuse substances. 

Instead of saying someone is a “rape victim,” one should say they are a “person who has experienced rape” or a “person who has been impacted by rape.” This is to avoid defining people “by just one of their experiences.” 

Any negative use of the word “black” (e.g., “blackbox”, “blacklist”) is frowned upon, as are the words “master,” “slave labor” and “red team” (because red might be offensive to “Indigenous peoples”). Conversely, any positive use of the word “white” should be avoided. 

The list contains additional categories with many other unapproved terms, such as “no can do,” “long time no see,” and “hip hip hooray” which, despite originating in the 19^th century, is offensive because it “was used by German citizens during the Holocaust as a rallying cry when they would hunt down Jewish citizens living in segregated neighborhoods.” 

Stanford notes it compiled the list based on inventories of offensive terms from other universities such as Brandeis, where a committee of students decide which terms are “harmful” and Carnegie Melon, which has a simple register of all negative words. Other sources include the college newspaper The Rocky Mountain Collegian, and a now-defunct website from the National Science Foundation.