Mick Hartley

Christopher Ferguson has resigned from the American Psychological Association (APA):

More recently, the APA announced a list of “inclusive language”, adding to the language policing that has become common in left spaces from journalism to the American Medical Association. “Mentally ill” is replaced with the clunky “person living with a mental health condition” and “prostitute” with “person who engages in sex work.” We’ll no longer have the elderly or seniors (“older adults” or “persons 65 years and older”). Just to make the “person with” format confusing, “person with deafness” is out (“deaf person”) as is “person with blindness” (“blind person”). Advocating color-blindness is out, as are caucasians (“White” or “European” is preferred). We’re not to talk about birth sex or people being born a boy or girl (“assigned female/male at birth” is the language of choice now). There are no more poor people just “people whose incomes are below the federal poverty threshold.” We’re not to use words like “pipeline” (“triggering” to Native Americans given controversies over fuel oil pipelines on Native lands), “spirit animal” (use “animal I would most like to be” which isn’t really the same thing) instead, or “tribe.” “Violent” language like “killing it” or “take a stab at it” is to be avoided. A lot of this is obvious safetyism, which I worry that, by treating people like they’re made of spun glass and incentivizing outrage and offense, will contribute to escalating mental health crises. But, as others have pointed out, it’s also elitist as most people couldn’t hope to keep up with the ever-changing language rules of the academic elite.

Well, bad as it is, this is mild stuff compared to what's happening in the academic fields of gender studies and the like.

For the latest tale of US institutions rotting from the head down, see Jerry Coyne's take on Scientific American and its hit job on the late EO Wilson.