Brandeis University Quietly Removes ‘Oppressive Language’ Guide From Website After Backlash
“As a community, we can strive to remove language that may hurt those who have experienced violence from our everyday use”
Why do so many colleges think it’s their job to police speech? This happens all the time.
Campus Reform reports:
Brandeis quietly removes ‘Oppressive Language’ guide from website after backlash
After Campus Reform revealed that Brandies University in Massachusetts had published an “Oppressive Language List,” asking students to avoid common terms like “ladies and gentlemen,” the school has now removed the content from its website.
The list, which included phrases and terms like “policeman,” “picnic,” “people of color,” “rule of thumb,” was previously posted by the university’s Prevention, Advocacy and Resource Center (PARC).
The now-defunct list was overseen by students involved with the center, according to the archive of the web page.
“Suggestions are brought forth by students who have been impacted by violence and students who have sought out advanced training for intervening in potentially violent situations,” the website read.
“As a community, we can strive to remove language that may hurt those who have experienced violence from our everyday use,” it added.
The list was previously titled, “Oppressive Language List,” but was revised in August 2021 after the group decided “to center the suggested alternatives rather than the words and phrases that may cause harm.”
Following Campus Reform’s initial reporting on the list, a disclaimer was added to clarify that the terminology that the web page recommends “is not a university expectation, requirement or reflection of policy.”
The suggestions were broken into various categories, including: “Violent Language,” “Identity-Based Language,” “Language That Doesn’t Say What We Mean,” “Culturally Appropriative Language,” and “Person-First & Identity-First.”
Discouraged phrases in the Violent Language category featured: “Take a stab at it,” “Trigger warning,” and “Beating a dead horse.”
The Identity-Based Language category advised against the use of “African-American,” “Long time no see,” and “Handicapped space.”
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
An obnoxiously Maoist/Stalinist ethos and brazenly totalitarian behavior are still standard operating procedure in academia. These public relations gestures don’t rectify the intrinsic moral, cultural and intellectual rot that has permeated colleges and universities.
If schools can’t teach kids of any age to deal with words they do not like or viewpoints they disagree with, they do not belong in business. Life has no safe spaces, except in the ground.
Until the people responsible for invoking this fascist rule are held accountable (that is: fired), it’s only a matter of time till it’s invoked again – and perhaps harsher.
We let these leftist totalitarians get their noses under the tent and now they’re in it. We have to do the right thing and correct our own fecklessness in allowing this to happen.
Moral of the story:
The university was attacking a fake issue. It was not the student’s language that was oppressive. It was their stupid language guide. That’s why they removed it.
Not to beat a dead horse but generally, inviting a policeman to your picnic might add some assurance of proper behavior by people….
Harrumph!!!
;-{)}}}
Are we still allowed to quote Woody Allen about the sadistic hippophilic necrophile?
Naked emperors here.
Naked emperors there.
Naked emperors all over America.
If you have what it takes to be offered admission to Brandeis University in 2023, then you have many better options than to enroll at Brandeis University in 2023.
Catcher in the Rye is oppressive language if it’s required reading.
Picnic?
Rule of thumb?
Beating a dead horse?
I confess I don’t understand the problem with these.
.
Brandeis administrators beclown themselves and their institution by spending time on this project.
No take-backs. It’s not elementary school.
Many of us remember a time when, not too long ago, a project like this would never have approved by anybody else at the university.
And it’s not just Brandeis. Johns Hopkins and Stanford published something similarly amateurish and juvenile.
Hey America: Wake up, These people are telling you that high school grads in 2023 are better off doing things other than college.
It’s ok. You’ll be fine.
The burgeoning academic administrative state is, like our government, full of amateurs, clowns and infantile appointees. Where else could they go?
It’s like they copy Michelle Obama’s juvenile graduation thesis and enforce it as “law” in their institutions.
We didn’t shut down mental institutions; we just call the colleges and universities now. The trouble is, we let out the inmates uncured.
Where else could they go?
(1) Go to work. Waiter. Waitress. Bartender. ESL teacher. Commercial driver. Au pair. Many other options.
(2) Become fluent in a 2nd language. For example, perhaps Spanish. Start online. A few hours per day.. Commit to eventually passing the DELE or SIELE C-level exam.
If you start (1) and (2) above by age 16 or by age 18 or 20, then by age 20 or 22 or 24 you will have many career options that will be unavailable to most of your former peers.
Many other advantages with this approach., in comparison to “default college right outta high school.”
I’ve seen this approach work. I’m not just blowing smoke.
Plus you save a ton of $$$$
They want to control the language like George Orwell said they would.
They want to everything Orwell said.
From Oppressive Language Handbook:
Don’t say lame—–Say uncool.
Don’t say African-American—-Say Black (with capital B)
And here’s my favorite:
Don’t say You guys—-Say Y’all
Say a lot of “Bless your heart.”
Y’all is triggering to Yankees. Why not yinz or youse? Maybe we could coin youse all as a gesture of unity.
When you’re triggered by trigger warnings, you may as well just leave all the s* you think you own out on the street for anybody who wants it.
Trigger warnings are good according to Roy Rogers. He said his horse Trigger warned him of danger many times, saving his life on numerous occasions.
Horsepucky. 99.9% of those students think violence is being mis-gendered or God forbid, told they are wrong about anything.
In the interest of their education and development as adults they could use being vigorously impacted by violence, as in a good kick in the arse or a slap up side their heads.
What they absolutely do not need is any more enabling of their delusions.
Not to mention the cases of violence by students who have been triggered when they feel themselves victimized by micro aggressions or cultural appropriation.
Is true. They take speech as violence and return actual physical violence, feeling perfectly justified
“Removed from the website” doesn’t mean anything. I guarantee it shows up again in printed form, but not online where it’s easily discoverable.
Or posted on bulletin boards in dorms/academic buildings where they aren’t in sight of the public, just the personnel under indoctrination, aka students..
Sticks and stones can break my bones, but names can never hurt me!