While preparing an essay for a women’s-studies course, a student writes a sentence using the word “mankind” to describe human beings. The student uses the word without thinking.
But the professor makes a note on the paper, pointing out that the structure of “mankind” is flawed because it assumes the male gender. The professor doesn’t penalize the usage, but indicates that the student should make a habit of using “humankind” instead, to emphasize that the meaning is gender-neutral.
This hypothetical situation illustrates a topic that has recently drawn intense scrutiny on college campuses. A number of conservative-leaning media outlets have taken aim at professors who incorporate guidelines for students’ use of language in their teaching, in the form of statements on course syllabi or in-class requests.
Some professors say encouraging students to employ gender-neutral and inclusive terms in their speaking and writing can be important when language is a fundamental part of the curriculum. Those practices can be especially useful, they say, when historically marginalized perspectives are up for discussion, such as in gender- or ethnic-studies courses.
But critics say those methods fuel what they view as a troubling trend of political correctness on campuses. And after a spate of critical articles and commentary surfaced in the past month, at least two institutions asked instructors who used such guidelines to revise their syllabi.
The instructors in question had said they would penalize students who used words like “mankind” or “illegal alien” in class and on assignments. Such policies are not common, and several scholars who teach courses in gender studies and ethnic studies told The Chronicle that they wouldn’t automatically dock students’ grades for using those words. Still, those scholars said such terms were problematic, and they emphasized the importance of teaching students about biases inherent in language.
So a question remains: How can faculty members educate students about such concepts without making demands that, in the eyes of some critics, improperly restrict speech?
There are instructional techniques for addressing word use that don’t make unreasonable requests of students, professors say, though their practices vary widely. “There’s a fundamental agreement that we’re not comfortable” with gendered and insensitive language, “and don’t accept it,” said Amy Levin, a professor of English at Northern Illinois University who teaches courses on gender and sexuality. “But how we handle it becomes a real conversation.”
‘Offensive to Some’
Selena Lester Breikss, a Washington State University graduate student, wrote in her syllabus for a course called “Introduction to Women’s Studies” that using gendered or biased words could result in “removal from the class, failure of the assignment, and — in extreme cases — failure for the semester.”
Statements about language use also appeared in the syllabi of another graduate student, Rebecca Fowler, and of John Streamas, an associate professor of critical culture, gender, and race studies.
After criticism of the syllabi flared up online, the university’s administration responded in late August by condemning any “blanket” policy that docked points for “using terms that may be deemed offensive to some,” and by demanding that the three of them revise their syllabi. Robert L. Strenge, a Washington State spokesman, said in an email that the university supports “learning about diverse perspectives” but also has “a responsibility to protect the freedom of expression of all members of our community, including students.”
Mr. Streamas said that he had included a similar statement in his syllabi for years and that no student had ever complained.
Ms. Fowler said she would continue to assign articles and share media with students that show why terms like “illegal alien” are problematic. “If we’re not permitted to set the boundaries for inclusive language in our classes by barring offensive and inappropriate terminology,” she said in an email, “then we must redouble and intensify our efforts to teach students” that using such language “is not OK.”
Washington State’s response set a bad precedent, Mr. Streamas added. “I would’ve thought the administration would have done more to defend me and the graduate students,” he said.
A women’s-studies lecturer at North Carolina State University faced similar criticism from conservative publications late last month. Nancy L. Bishop had written in the syllabus for her online course “Women in Poverty” that, “thanks to evolution, generalized pronouns and other biased references are no longer acceptable in any class.” She had also indicated that “grades will be docked for sexist language in assignments.”
Ms. Bishop did not respond to emailed requests for comment. An N.C. State spokesman, Fred Hartman, said in an email that the issue “resulted from a poorly constructed and misunderstood paragraph in an 11-page syllabus that the professor has since revised.”
Making such requests at the start of a semester is inconsistent with free academic inquiry, said Stanley E. Fish, a law professor at Florida International University who has written in The Chronicle and elsewhere about academic issues. “I don’t think you can, in advance, give a list of words or phrases not to be used,” he said. “There, you’re not engaging in pedagogical exercise. You’re engaging in a form of thought control and language control.”
But Ms. Bishop’s intentions were “acceptable and reasonable,” said Jeffery P. Braden, dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at N.C. State. “Many people have conflated this request with an expectation that students must also do this when they are exercising their free-speech rights” outside the classroom, he said. “The requirement was for discussion within the course.”
‘Language Can Have an Impact’
Several faculty members in women’s studies and ethnic studies said in interviews that they believed the grade-deduction policies were well intentioned, though none of them said they would be likely to support such practices in their classrooms.
“Unfortunately, we live in a society where these terms are going to continue to exist for a while,” said Ms. Levin, the Northern Illinois professor. Before taking one of her courses, she said, “a lot of those students really haven’t been exposed to these questions about how they talk.”
Still, the professors agreed on the importance of teaching students to see the harm that words can cause. “There are absolutely times when language can have an impact on climate and someone’s view of safety,” said Lisa Maatz, chief policy adviser for the American Association of University Women. She has taught women’s studies at Ohio State University.
At the University of Pittsburgh, faculty members in the program in gender, sexuality, and women’s studies have tried to find a middle ground; they published language guidelines in the spring and began including a statement about them in syllabi.
The guidelines suggest avoiding, for instance, “mankind,” “chairman,” “freshman,” and “congressman,” and indicate preferable alternatives. “No one is ordering you to use this language,” they state. “However, some people are asking you to be considerate of their wishes and sensibilities. In short, it’s merely politeness.”
The intent was never to police students’ speech, said Todd W. Reeser, director of the program. “We want to say, let’s think about this issue and talk about it,” he said. This fall marks the first full semester since the guidelines were published, and so far, he said, students’ feedback has been positive.
One place Mr. Reeser looked for inspiration was the University of Maine system, where at least two campuses have adopted broad policies stating that “each member of the university community is urged to be sensitive to the impact of language and to make a personal commitment to eliminate sexist language.” The policy statement on the flagship campus’s website includes examples of sentences considered sexist (“A college athlete needs to budget his time carefully”) with revised versions (“Budgeting time is essential for college athletes”).
Concerns About Activism
Few institutions or degree programs have emulated Pittsburgh and Maine in embracing standardized guidelines. But many instructors in women’s studies and ethnic studies have strategies for encouraging students to avoid gendered and biased language — methods that they say do not encroach on free speech.
“It is problematic to just say, These are bad words,” said Anne S. Runyan, chair of the American Association of University Professors’ Committee on Women in the Academic Profession. Professors must address why, she said.
Ms. Runyan, who is a professor of women’s, gender, and sexuality studies at the University of Cincinnati, brings up respect and preferred pronouns in her course policies, stated in her syllabi. Doing so, she said, can “put the gender binary into question” right away.
Simone Kolysh, a graduate student at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York who has taught women’s studies and sociology as an adjunct at several colleges, crafts behavioral guidelines for her courses, including a recommendation to not use stereotypes about gender and race in class.
She said the guidelines “help students in positions of power to listen” to students from marginalized backgrounds, “whose actual lived experience is part and parcel of my lecture.”
When Ms. Maatz was teaching, she had students take words like “policeman” and “nurse” and draw them on the first day of class as an introduction to bias in language.
She said she also tried to make clear that students didn’t have to become feminists or activists to succeed in her courses. She recalled having students “who were ardent nonbelievers, so to speak,” but many of them made a serious effort to understand concepts like gendered language and performed well, she said.
Mr. Fish said instructors in those fields must be careful not to promote an agenda. Although activists helped gender studies and ethnic studies earn “a place at the academic table” four decades ago, he said, the courses can’t be “an extension of activism.” Teaching about language with minority groups in mind, he said, may at times conflict with the disinterested tone that is key for academic work.
Still, students should be educated about why using certain words might not be the best choice, said Andrea Herrera, director of the women’s- and ethnic-studies program at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs.
Most of her students are eager to discuss language, Ms. Herrera said. Some of them “come to the table with boxing gloves on. They want to fight, they want to resist. But what is the point of just preaching to the choir?” That resistance, she said, becomes “an invitation to the conversation.”
