Stanford offered financial reward to report harmful words to campus officials

Backlash led to retraction, new initiatives to demand free speech, academic freedom

Members of Stanford University’s information technology department once offered a “financial reward” to those who flagged and reported “racist terminology” on university websites.

The offer was part of a “Statement of Solidarity and Commitment to Action” program that debuted in 2020, but the financial incentive was raised during a late-January faculty senate meeting during which professors voiced alarm over what they contend is a growing Orwellian atmosphere on their campus.

Stanford scholars also cited the school’s “Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative,” the IDEAL Anti-Racism Toolkit pushed on campus and the university’s relatively new “Protected Identity Harm Reporting” system as alarming projects stifling both free speech and academic freedom.

The faculty senate on Feb. 9 voted to create an “Ad Hoc Committee on University Speech” to review these ongoing concerns and present solutions.

The late-January faculty presentation came on the heels of nationwide blowback to the university’s 13-page “Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative,” first reported on in December 2022 by The Wall Street Journal.

The initiative, one aspect of the “Statement of Solidarity and Commitment to Action” program, drew widespread criticism for stating more than 125 words, including common ones such as “addict,” “American” and “trigger warning,” should be eliminated from school websites.

While campus brass mostly brushed off the national criticism as an overreaction to a minor IT department effort, the faculty presentation argued it was much more than that.

It pointed out campus leaders behind the “Statement of Solidarity and Commitment to Action” and “Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative,” represent “senior-most technical leaders” of all schools and units, and that their efforts included a...

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