How Much is Too Much: Stanford’s Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative

Author’s Note: This article uses words and phrases that some might find offensive or uncomfortable.

As a writer, language is important to me and I’m a firm believer in the term “Words have meaning.” I am fortunate enough to have thousands upon thousands of words from which to choose when I’m writing fiction and non-fiction, and I like to use a lot of them. But I also realize that language can be used for ill purposes. In addition, I sometimes wrestle with whether I can write from a given vantage point, such as from the perspective of a Japanese woman who lost her husband, which I did in my first novel, and I’ve discussed this in other venues. I have made every effort to remove certain words from my vocabulary, especially in cases where I learn of their nefarious origins. For example, I no longer use the term “gipped” (alternately spelled “gyped”), which may have been derived from an epithet for the Romani people, often disparagingly called Gypsies. Growing up, almost everyone I knew used the word to denote having been cheated or otherwise defrauded another person. I avoid saying words like “gay,” “fag” (which was very popular in Marine Corps barracks when I was on active duty), and “retarded.” I’ve studied enough history to know that language, the meaning of words, and how they’re used change over time. I’m also familiar with how language and words can be used to hurt and diminish people, and how seductive using those words can be for some.

Eighteen months ago, Stanford University’s CIO Council and the People of Color in Technology, both of which are evidently somehow connect to or are part of Stanford’s IT Department, though I have no idea how they interplay, began what they called the Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative (EHLI). Released on 19 December 2022, the 13-page document claims to be the result of “a multi-phase, multi-year project to address harmful language in IT at Stanford.” The authors go on to say:

“The goal of the Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative 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 first page contains a Content Warning, suggesting that people “engage with this website at your own pace.”

The document is then broken down into 11 categories: Ableist, Ageism, Colonialism, Culturally Appropriative, Gender-Based, Imprecise Language, Institutionalized Racism, Person-First, Violent, and Additional Considerations. Within each of these categories are a series of words under the headings: Instead of, Consider using, and Context; the word or phrase that’s problematic, what should use in its place, and why. I can almost guarantee you that today you’ve used at least one of these problematic words or phrases, and most likely have used many. And I doubt you gave it a second thought.

There are a few reasons that a word or phrase might be included in this document. One is that it trivializes experiences. Another is that the word consists of ableist language. Another still is the simple fact that a term’s original, historical usage has been lost, but by using it you’re inadvertently harming others.

EHLI sounds like noble effort and, on its face, it is. We should, in general, at least try to avoid deliberately using language that makes people uncomfortable, at least if we want to have meaningful interactions with them. However, the end results — the execution — borders on absurdity.

My biggest concern with efforts such as these is the educational component. Our speech is riddled with metaphors and euphemisms and figures of speech, almost none of which are ever used literally in communication. It is impossible for an average person to know the genesis of all of these. I am not permitted to use some words or phrases because I don’t know their origins, which might be offensive. But I’m also not permitted to use some words or phrases because someone else doesn’t know their origins, which are not offensive. I have to know everything. My reader or listener seemingly has little responsibility except to feel that something I’ve said offends them. Whether they’re right is irrelevant. The onus is entirely on the communicator. This should not be the case. I view this similarly to how I view the recent emphasis on pronouns. I have absolutely no issue with using someone’s preferred pronouns. I am more than willing to evolve. But I do have an issue with someone getting upset if I inadvertently use a different pronoun, either because I have forgotten or do not know. In the former case, it may well slip my mind because for the majority of my life, this subject did not exist. It takes time to change patters of speech, even if I am trying to do the right thing. In the latter case, most human interactions are based at least in part on assumptions ingrained over thousands of years. If, for example, I call a person in a store “Sir,” I intend no offense if they prefer “Ma’am.” I simply did not know, and they are welcomed and encouraged to educate me. I will endeavor to do better the next time I see them.

Despite the manufactured outrage and invented complexity of pronoun usage from some quarters, it really is a simple concept, albeit one that might take some getting used to for society in general. The items on EHLI’s list are often legitimately more complex and nuanced, and again there’s an issue of education and knowledge. If I am required to be familiar with the origins of every phrase, those who may be offended by the same should as well. Take, for example, “cake walk.” EHLI states that “Enslaved people covertly used exaggerated dance to mock their enslavers. This turned into “balls” that the White enslavers would hold for entertainment where the prize is a cake.” I’d wager that a vast majority of people have no idea where this came from, but some might, and some might take offense even though for all intents and purposes, the term has lost its original meaning. No one uses it to refer to a dance ball competition, at the end of which an enslaved person might win a cake as a prize. When they say it, they mean something was easy. On the other hand, you have “Balls to the wall.” Some people might assume that it refers to testicles and thus think, as the guide says, that it “attributes personality traits to anatomy.” This is false. The term originated in aviation. To go balls to the wall meant to push the throttle to the maximum speed, to the firewall, because throttles used to have spherical knobs, similar in shape to balls. Not a testicle, which is not spherical. The phrase has nothing at all to do with “traits to anatomy.” Now, going “balls out,” on the other hand…perhaps that’s one to be avoided.

Another example is “brown bag,” as in a brown bag lunch. The guide claims that the term: “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.” Absolutely no one uses the term in that context in the modern era. Should someone say, “brown bag test,” then yes, I can see how that might be offensive in the context of segregation. Brown bag lunch, however, refers to the small paper bags that one might carry a lunch in for certain occasions such as field trips or training.

There are, of course, some examples which are obvious. In general communication, for example, almost no one should use the word “uppity” to describe someone. The connotations virtually smack you in the face. “Whipped into shape” might be another one if you think about it for a second. “Jewed” is also pretty obvious and, thankfully, has largely died out, at least amongst those with whom I associate. That’s one that, I think, was obvious at least seventy years ago. “Half-breed,” is also something people should refrain from saying, and those who say it are probably the sort of people who did so deliberately. There are others, and I encourage you to read the document.

Then there are the ones that I think are a stretch, particularly the ones that “suggests” some feeling. “Circle the wagons,” for instance, “suggests an impending attack by the “savages” and should be avoided.” The reader is told to use “marshall [sic] forces, gather together” instead, though I think one should use “marshal forces” since that is the correct spelling. Similarly, “Hold down the fort” “stems from settlers and soldiers resisting “savages” when “on the warpath.”” To whom does either of these phrases suggest either of those things in modern speech? Wagon circles long predate Native Americans’ interactions with settlers. The Goths used a defensive wagon circle during the Battle of Adrianople in 375 CE against the Romans, to great effect I might add. Emperor Valens did not leave the field under his own power, since he was dead. In this case, would “circling the wagons” be offensive to Goths or to Romans? “Trigger warning” is to be avoided as well, as “The phrase can cause stress about what’s to follow.” Instead, use “content note.” How the use of “content note” wouldn’t “cause stress about what’s to follow” is unclear to me. In fact, the vagueness of that phrase seems likely to cause more stress, since the reader or listener is left wondering what, exactly, might be uncomfortable. Should they listen? The whole point in adding “Trigger warnings” to things was to allow the listener to gird themselves or, perhaps, to opt out. “Content note” doesn’t at all clear anything up and merely obfuscates the situation. Another absurdity: “Abusive relationship.” Because, “The relationship doesn’t commit abuse. A person does, so it is important to make that fact clear.” Instead, use “relationship with an abusive person.” Ignoring the lack of concision that many of these recommendations engender, I can’t imagine anyone being confused by “abusive relationship.” Indeed, it is the relationship with an abuser that is abusive. Perhaps the abuser has relationships with others who are not abusive, and let’s avoid defining a person based on a single characteristic (more on that later). If I said, “Healthy relationship,” would you then, by this logic, assume that the relationship isn’t healthy, a person is? Of course not.

Another category I find confusing is the one addressing “person-first” language. To be avoided: convict, disabled person, homeless person, immigrant, prisoner, and prostitute. The why: “Using person-first language helps to not define people by just one of their characteristics.” You should use phrases like, “person with a disability,” and “person who has immigrated, non-citizen.” Wouldn’t “non-citizen” be defining a person by just one of their characteristics? In these cases, context matters. If writing an article about homelessness, it might be appropriate to use “homeless person.” The same applies if you’re writing about prison reform or recidivism and use the term ex-convict. It is appropriate to refer to someone as a “user” if they’re, well, using software. They’re not clients, necessarily. “User” may have different connotations in different contexts. Because context matters. Most people are able to readily identify context. If I adhere to the spirit of this document, I suppose that I’m not a historian, I’m a person who studies history. I’m not a writer, I’m a person who writes. I’m not an analyst, I’m a person who analyzes things. I don’t wish to be defined by just one of my characteristics, so I must refer to myself in convoluted, tortured language to avoid doing so. Jesting aside, I think it obvious to anyone with an ounce of empathy that people are complex and are more than just one of their characteristics.

Inconsistencies abound in this document. In one case, “to call a spade a spade,” the authors mention its Greek origins before stating the term “spade” has subsequent (i.e. modern) negative connotations. Yet in the case of “ghetto,” no mention is made of the ghetto into which Jewish persons were confined in 16th century Venice, just that “The term indicates any socially segregated non-white neighborhood” (as does “barrio”). Why call out the Greek genesis at all? Why not just state that “spade” has negative connotations in modern usage? Though, frankly, I strongly doubt that anyone who “calls a spade a spade” is thinking of either the Greek saying or commenting on the color of the spade vis a vis ethnicity. And color is a very important thing in this document. Black hat, black mark, black sheep, blackballed, blackbox, blacklist, grey hat, red team, white hat, white paper, white team, whitebox, whitelist, whitespace, and yellow team all have entries. They assign “value connotations based on color (white=good), an act which is subconsciously racialized.” Is that true? In the military, when we do training exercises and someone has to staff the Red Cell, which simulates the opposition forces, are we subconsciously racializing the issue? Or was it because the Soviets, the geopolitical rival of the United States for four decades, and communists used the color red? That’s certainly what I think of when I hear the term. Am I still allowed to say “Blue Force Tracker?” Should we say, “good guys and bad guys?” Or does that define an entity by just one of its characteristics? Ironically, instead of saying “Karen,” you should consider using “demanding or entitled White woman.”

Keep in mind, this isn’t a Stanford Style Manual, intended to be used by the entire university and the student body. It’s a document produced, probably at some expense, by the IT Department for the above reasons of cleaning up code and website language. Again, I do think that this is a noble (admirable?) effort. Some of the words and phrases mentioned in this document are abhorrent and should be relegated to the dustbin of history. I’m just not sure that it hits the sweet spot. Regardless, it seems almost certain that at some point, some entity will endeavor to create a style manual for a much broader audience specifically addressing language and word choices and expect that anyone who writes under its auspices adhere to it, and such a manual will inevitably err on the side of caution. While I do strongly believe that avoiding specifically inflammatory language is a just pursuit, I’m not sure that I can advocate for the legitimacy of any document that so seeks to hamstring (unnecessary images of violence) writers and communicators in this way. If this is the future, we will be confronted with language that is boring and stripped of spirit. With the apparent rise of essay writing artificial intelligence, we should try to avoid that fate. No style manual addressing such a subject could ever be comprehensive and nuanced to satisfy all people. And that is, at its heart, the issue with human communication.

For further reading on this, The Stanford Review wrote “Big Brother is Watching You: Stanford’s New ‘Harmful Language’ Guide”, which is probably a lot less kind than the aforementioned words.