Stanford’s Attack on Free Speech is Defeated

For once, common sense has triumphed. Steve Gallagher, Stanford’s Chief Information Officer and a champion of PC culture, has begrudgingly removed a Stanford website that listed “harmful language.” Created for an initiative known as The Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative (ELHI), the website met its demise after public pushback ensued from all of those who have two brain cells to put together.

Stanford’s list of naughty words was created supposedly to “promote a more inclusive and welcoming environment where individuals from all backgrounds feel they belong.” However, rather than follow through with this stated purpose, the Stanford CIO Council, along with the People of Color in Technology affinity group, insidiously included words such as “American,” “immigrant,” and “straight” in the list. These words were cited as some of the English language’s prime examples of “harmful language, including racist, violent, and biased language [with]in Stanford websites.” In doing so, the website provided a prime example of the lunacy found within elite, so-called intellectual institutions today. Employing the words they sought to purge, the parties at Stanford responsible for this website were in fact “crazy, dumb, stupid, lame, and tone deaf.” Even a cursory review of the website would have caused one to lose more IQ than would an acute case of the six-pack flu. To those left quaking in their boots by the mere mention of a word such as “manpower,” consider yourselves in need of some gonads.

Fortunately, fierce backlash has led Stanford to ultimately walk back the list—at least temporarily. On December 20, 2022, Gallagher issued a statement suggesting that the ELHI’s website was created merely as a guideline for “the IT community at Stanford” rather than as a mandate for the entirety of Stanford University. (This statement incorrectly implies that the IT Department is an independent arm of the university and could have acted without the support and oversight of Stanford’s Administration.) Ultimately, the website was shuttered on January 4, 2023. Stanford’s removal of the list brought back an ounce of hope to those of us who wish for a world in which one is permitted to speak freely.

Unfortunately, woke barbarians remain guards of the gate of free expression. Stanford has elected simply to remove the website rather than rework its broader policies: “The Stanford IT community remains steadfast in its commitment to the university’s values of diversity and inclusion.” This should read as: “Despite setbacks, the Stanford IT community retains its commitment to admitting a smaller number of white students and dissenters from postmodern propagandists.”

Regrettably, Stanford is by no means the worst perpetrator of policies which are anti-free speech. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression listed the university as 106 of the 203 schools in its ranking on free speech, only slightly behind Dartmouth’s ranking of 83. This leaves a great many institutions with speech policies worse than Stanford’s.

One of said institutions is the University of Southern California, which did not seem to learn from the Stanford affair. On January 9, just five days after Stanford felt compelled to remove the website in question, USC’s Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work renamed its “Office of Field Education” as the “Office of Practicum Education,” electing to remove the word “field” in order to “reject white supremacy, anti-immigrant, and anti-blackness ideologies.” This decision was applauded by the president of the National Association of Student Workers, Mildred Joyner. 

This name change at USC bodes ill, but owing to the lesser attention it has received compared to Stanford’s list, it seems unlikely that a reversal and name reversion is in the cards. As things stand, USC’s dire ranking of 139 leaves many institutions with restrictions on speech which are deemed to be even worse than this. At the end of the day, a battle for free speech was won at Stanford, but the war, to be sure, is one that is ongoing.

Some Proposed Additions to the Stanford List

As an engaging exercise in absurdity, Mr. Leiher has compiled the following list. It contains 20 words listed on the ELHI website and 5 words added by The Dartmouth Review. Can you tell the difference?

Addict: person with a substance use disorder

Using person-first language helps to not define people by just one of their characteristics

Blackballed: banned, denied

Assigns negative connotations to the color black, racializing the term

Blackbox: hidden, mystery box, opaque box, flight recorder

Assigns negative connotations to the color black, racializing the term

*Blackmailed: compromised, threatened with sensitive information

Assigns negative connotations to the color black, racializing the term

Brown Bag: lunch and learn, tech talk

Historically associated with the “brown paper bag test” that certain Black sororities and fraternities used to judge skin color—those whose skin color was darker than the brown bag were not allowed to join

Crazy: surprising, wild

Ableist language that trivializes the experiences of people living with mental health conditions

Dumb: non-vocal, non-verbal

Once used to describe a person who could not speak and implied the person was incapable of expressing themselves

*Dunce: person with a cognitive disability, neurodivergent

This term is a slur against those who are neurodivergent or have a cognitive disability

Ghetto: use neighborhood’s name

The term indicates any socially segregated non-white neighborhood

*Groundsman: groundskeeper

This term reinforces male-dominated language

*Hoodlum: criminal

The term indicates disdain for any person in a socially segregated non-white neighborhood 

Immigrant: person who has immigrated, non-citizen

Using person-first language helps to not define people by just one of their characteristics

Insane: surprising, wild

Ableist language that trivializes the experiences of people living with mental health conditions

Lame: boring, uncool

Ableist language that can trivialize the experience of people living with disabilities

Mankind: people, humankind, human beings

This term reinforces male-dominated language

Manmade: made by hand

This term reinforces male-dominated language

*Migrant: person who has migrated

Using person-first language helps to not define people by just one of their characteristics

On the Warpath: mad, on the offensive

Cultural appropriation of a term that referred to the route taken by Indigenous people 

heading toward a battle with an enemy

Seminal: leading, groundbreaking

This term reinforces male-dominated language

Spaz: clumsy

Ableist language that trivializes the experiences of people living with disabilities

Stupid: boring, uncool

Once used to describe a person who could not speak and implied the person was incapable of expressing themselves

Thug: suspect or criminal

Although the term refers to a violent person or criminal, it often takes on a racist connotation when used in certain circles

Tone Deaf: unenlightened

Ableist language that trivializes the experiences of people living with disabilities

Trigger Warning: content note

The phrase can cause stress about what’s to follow; additionally, one can never know what may or may not trigger a particular person

Uppity: arrogant, stuck up

Although the term originated in the Black community to describe another Black person who didn’t know their socioeconomic place, it was quickly adopted by White Supremacists to describe any Black person who didn’t act as “expected”

*means from TDR