Diane Ravitch

New York is the worst offender, according to Ravitch, who recently learned that the states guidelines for language sensitivity requires nearly all references to age, ancestry, disability, ethnicity, nationality, physical appearance, race, religion, sex or sexuality to be deleted. These unpublicized guidelines were discovered by Candace deRussy, a trustee of the State University of New York, who had to use a state freedom-of-information law to obtain a copy of the training materials for the bias and sensitivity reviewers. (Wall Street Journal, 2-13-04)

The most comical example of how similar guidelines mangle literary passages is the following statement in a new textbook on human development brought to Ravitchs attention: "As a folksinger once sang, how many roads must an individual walk down before you can call them an adult." This is a gender-neutral rewrite of Bob Dylans folk song "Blowin in the Wind," which contains the line: "How many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man?"

Based on the training materials, the following is a partial list of words declared by the New York education department to be taboo, biased or to be avoided:

addict alumnus American cancer patient city fathers elderly fireman gentlemans agreement ghetto grandfather clause handyman

hostess illegal alien illegitimate illiterate man-hours manpower manind manmade masterpiece mastery penmanship

teenager senior citizen third world uncivilized underprivileged unmarried white, blue or pink collar widow widower yes man