Stanford Seeks the 'Elimination of Harmful Language' Like 'American,' 'Stupid,' and…'Karen'

Stanford University's IT department created a list of offensive terms and phrases accompanied by alternative recommendations. Until recently, the list was publicly available, but the university's website has made it password-protected after significant criticism.

"The Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative (EHLI) is a multi-phase, multi-year project to address harmful language in IT at Stanford," notes the list. "The goal of (EHLI) 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."

The list, which was recently discovered—and ruthlessly mocked—by The Wall Street Journal will feel familiar to anyone who has ever encountered universities' microaggression reporting protocols. It includes somewhat outdated expressions with problematic racial origins that hardly anyone remembers, like "low man on the totem pole" and "long time no see." It also features many words and phrases that are inoffensive but could possibly be perceived as racial or gendered if you squinted at them long enough: "white paper," "webmaster," etc. The term "American" is disfavored on technical grounds, since not all Americans are denizens of the U.S.