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Washington State University's "Introduction to Comparative Ethnic Studies" joins UCLA and UC Berkeley in banning certain offensive terms.
Why would anyone want to offend the largest minority (about 25 million eligible voters) group in the country?
According to a report from Campus Reform, one Washington State University professor said she will dock points from students who use the terms “illegal alien” or “illegals” in written assignments.
Rebecca Fowler is a member of the critical culture, gender & race studies department at WSU, where she is also a PhD candidate in American Studies.
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According to the course syllabus for her fall 2015 Introduction to Comparative Ethnic Studies, the phrases are unacceptable for use in her classroom.
Per the syllabus:
Not “illegal alien” or “illegals” but “undocumented” migrants/immigrants/persons. Note that the Associated Press (AP) has determined not to use it: ‘The Stylebook no longer sanctions the term “illegal immigrant” or the use of “illegal” to describe a person. Instead, it tells users that “illegal” should describe only an action, such as living in or immigrating to a country illegally.’
She told Campus Reform that “the term ‘illegal alien’ has permeated dominant discourses that circulate in the news to the extent that our society has come to associate ALL unauthorized border crossings with those immigrants originating from countries south of our border.”
The phrases are not the only ones Fowler tells her students to avoid—also on the list are “colored” and “the white man,” (opt instead, she writes, for “white society,” “white men,” or “white males.”) Students who use these phrase in written assignments will lose one grade point per use.
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