Quote:Following the example of federal agencies, some campuses are coming up with lists of keywords to purge their webpages and courses of DEI content.

Quote:“Biases.” “Racism.” “Gender.” “Women.”

Those are just some of the terms colleges and universities are searching for in their databases to ensure compliance with federal DEI bans and similar directives from states and university systems.

Robin Goodman, distinguished research professor of English at Florida State University and president of the university’s chapter of United Faculty of Florida, said her institution is using a list of keywords to review webpages for DEI language in response to federal and state directives. While not all those terms were scrubbed, the list, which has circulated among faculty, disturbed her.

“From my point of view, those words are now dangerous words” that exacerbate a “culture of fear” on campus, she said.

She’s also mystified by which terms did and didn’t make it onto her university’s list, noting that the word “woman” is flagged, but not “man” or “sex.”

Quote:She’s also mystified by which terms did and didn’t make it onto her university’s list, noting that the word “woman” is flagged, but not “man” or “sex.”