A recent example is at Springfield College in Massachusetts. Following the lead of Boston University, the school reportedly provided students with guidance on inclusive language that discourages them from using the terms "father" and "mother" in favor of the genderless word "parents."
According to Campus Reform, this has also happened at the University of Kansas, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.
"The universities have been given over to a form of Left ideology that favors inclusion and diversity above all things," comments Dr. Adam Ellwanger of Campus Reform. "There're some feelings that perhaps the traditional family structure excludes or marginalizes other forms of families. As an English professor, I could say that language dictates what we can think; controlling language is a way to control what people think."
He reasons that if they can neutralize the idea that fathers and mothers contribute particular things to children and families, then they can normalize these alternative family structures that they feel are being excluded.
He is not the only professor who is concerned about such language guides and related efforts on campuses, but as Dr. Ellwanger accounts, those who have misgivings about these trends, about controlling language, speak about it "very quietly." Most are "happy" to go along with it because they are convinced there are some "pretty strong incentives not to voice criticism" of the diversity, equity, and inclusion social justice platform that the universities have embraced.
He believes everyone, whether they have children in college or children at all, should be concerned about this.
"Some of the social pathologies that we're all dealing with as a society are more likely to emerge from contexts where parents or where children don't have a father or a mother," Dr. Ellwanger notes. "So, I think it's important that universities celebrate these roles and stop perpetuating false ideas about child rearing and family formation."
