It's now OK again at Washington State University to call a woman a "female."
Inside Higher Education reports:
Washington State University on Monday announced that it would not allow instructors to make "blanket" bans on the use of certain words or phrases in class, even if those words and phrases offend people. Further, the university said that instructors could not punish students for use of such words or phrases.
The announcement followed a barrage of criticism of the syllabus for Women & Popular Culture, a women's studies course, that banned specific words and phrases and set out punishments for their use.
Two WSU instructors, Rebecca Fowler and Selena Lester Breikiss, had included lists of banned words and phrases in their syllabi.
Here's a screen-cap (from the Fusion website) of Breikiss's syllabus, stating that students could fail her course if they used such terms as "Illegal Aliens" or referred to "women/men as females or males":
Fowler was a little less harsh, promising merely to deduct grade points for linguistic no-nos:
WSU's Aug. 31 announcement stated:
Over the weekend, we became aware that some faculty members, in the interest of fostering a constructive climate for discussion, included language in class syllabi that has been interpreted as abridging students’ free speech rights. We are working with these faculty members to clarify, and in some cases modify, course policies to ensure that students’ free speech rights are recognized and protected. No student will have points docked merely as a result of using terms that may be deemed offensive to some. Blanket restriction of the use of certain terms is not consistent with the values upon which this university is founded.
It's a relief to know that WSU students won't be penalized for saying or writing something wrong in their Women & Popular Culture course–although, given the ideological fog that blankets the entire field of "women's studies," it's probably a mistake to sign up for such a course in the first place.
And according to the College Fix, the WSU message still hasn't reached North Carolina State University, where lecturer Nancy Bishop promises to dock the grades of students who use "sexist language" in her online Women and Poverty course:
“Thanks to evolution, generalized pronouns and other biased references are no longer acceptable in any class,” the syllabus reads in a section on “Non-Sexist Language.”
“You may NOT use ‘he’ or ‘him’ or ‘man’ to refer to both men and women,” it continues. Bishop tells students they can replace “mankind” with “humans” or “humankind,” and should write “she or he” instead of just “he,” though the syllabus is unclear on whether students should always lead with a female pronoun.
“Grades will be docked for sexist language in assignments,” the section concludes.
So watch it at North Carolina State. Don't say "one giant leap for mankind" in Bishop's class–or you could get an "F."