Stanford’s ‘Harmful Language’ List Includes ‘American’, Elon Musk Calls it ‘Madness’

Last Updated: December 24, 2022, 12:35 ISTThe guide urges people to substitute the term American with US citizen "thereby insinuating that the US is the most important country in

the Americas" under the section Imprecise Language. (Credits: Reuters / Twitter)Stanford University is facing a strong backlash for a language guide that it has designed to

cultivate inclusive language. Stanford University is facing a strong backlash for a language guide that it has designed to cultivate inclusive language. The "harmful language" list

has words and phrases that it plans to eliminate from its online language or in the Stanford code. Many concerns have been raised about the recently revised list, which allegedly

included adjectives like "American," "brave," and "addicted" in it.The institution began the Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative (EHLI) earlier this year, introducing a

website in May "geared toward helping individuals recognize and address potentially harmful language they may be using."Ableism, Ageism, Homophobia, and Institutionalized Racism

are among the ten categories under which EHLI has classified the words that are forbidden from being used. The Stanford University language manual tries to "eliminate many forms of

harmful language, including racist, violent, and biased ... language in Stanford websites and code."Following backlash for the language manual, Stanford University restricted

access to the webpage to users with an internal login. Many of the phrases that were added to the list did, in fact, have a history of oppression and discrimination, but people

found some words on the list to be repugnant.For instance, the guide urges people to substitute the term American with US citizen “thereby insinuating that the US is the most

important country in the Americas” under the section Imprecise Language. Another term on the list that is deemed harmful is "abort," which is to be replaced by "cancel" or "end"

due to concerns around the word "abortion." Furthermore, the 13-page list includes slurs directed at indigenous tribes, wheelchair users, black people, the LGBTQ+ community among

others.Amid the backlash, Stanford University's spokesperson told Fox News Digital, “Stanford's style guidelines are meant for internal use, often for individual workgroups. In

this case, the EHLI website was specifically created by and intended for use within the university IT community. It will continue to be refined based on ongoing input from the

community.Read all the Latest Buzz News here buzz staffA team of writers at healthick.com bring you stories on what's creating the buzz on the Internet while exploring science,