Professor docking points when students don’t use gender-neutral language

The new fascist have risen and are controlling America’s college campuses, and now, it’s affecting students’ grades.

Cailin Jeffers is an English major at Northern Arizona University. She made the egregious error of writing the term “mankind” in a recent essay and was deducted a point because the professor preferred “humanity” over her gender-specific term.

Dr. Anne Scott sent an e-mail to Jeffers to explain why she penalized her for “problems with diction (word choice):”

I would be negligent, as a professor who is running a class about the human condition and the assumptions we make about being “human,” if I did not also raise this issue of gendered language and ask my students to respect the need for gender-neutral language. The words we use matter very much, or else teachers would not be making an issue of this at all, and the MLA [Modern Language Association] would not be making recommendations for gender-neutral language at the national level.

Scott offered Jeffers a redo if she wanted to correct her word choice, but made it clear that in the future, gender-neutral language is a must in the class:

I will respect your choice to leave your diction choices “as is” and to make whatever political and linguistic statement you want to make by doing so. By the same token, I will still need to subtract a point because your choice will not be made in the letter or spirit of this particular class, which is all about having you and other students looking beneath your assumptions and understanding that “mankind” does not mean “all people” to all people. It positively does not.

Jeffers told Campus Reform that she was purposefully insubordinate; that this was a test to see if Dr. Scott was truly serious about her strict rules. Jeffers explained that after an initial round of essays, the professor urged gender-neutral language such as “humanity” in place of “mankind.” So, in the next assignment, Jeffers inserted the word and found out the professor wasn’t fooling around.

“I stated that I agree with everything she said about my paper except my use of ‘mankind,’” Jeffers said. “She proceeded to tell me that the NAU English department, as well as the Modern Language Association, are pushing for gender-neutral language, and all students must abide by this. She told me that ‘mankind’ does not refer to all people, only males. I refuted, stating that it DOES refer to all people, [but] she proceeded to tell me that I was wrong, ‘mankind’ is sexist, and I should make an effort to look beyond my preset positions and ideologies, as is the focus of the class.”

Scott stressed that her decision “goes beyond ‘political correctness,’” but insisted that the use of terms like “mankind” or referring to readers as “him/he” will result in loss of points.

Let’s hope Jeffers remains intent on resisting this fascism while still maintaining a passing grade, but here’s a serious question.  Why is MANkind wrong and huMANity okay?  These poor fascists don’t have logic as their strong point, do they?