America’s colleges are going woke and broke. University of South Cal. is no different, with a new decision that has even many liberals shocked.
The university’s Dworak-Peck department of social work is deleting a specific word from all future coursework and manuals because it says the word has a racist history.
Getting rid of this bad word will protect students from racism and feeling excluded, according to the management of Dworak-Peck.
No More Use of This Word!
Of course, we might wonder by this point what the negative word is that the social school at USC won’t be using anymore in its social work school. It must be a word with a very loaded history of hate and evil.
It’s actually the word “field.” Yes, seriously. Instead of using this word, Dworak-Peck will only refer to “practicum.”
The changes were stated recently in a new communique from the college, which says the word field isn’t inclusive or positive for immigrants and black people.
In particular “field work” and phrases about working in a field may bring up generationally painful associations for black people or those from an immigrant background.
Yes, they are seriously no longer using the word “field” in any form because they think it refers to slavery and immigrant laborers.
USC bans “field” because the word is “racist, anti-black, anti-immigrant” pic.twitter.com/9V8xZleN7S
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) January 11, 2023
Why Does This Matter?
There are three main reasons this matters.
First of all, USC is not some random community college; it’s a major national university. One of its big departments banning a word in order to be woke is very concerning.
If this is what higher education has come down to, then we are all in a lot of trouble and the next generation is going to have mush for brains.
Secondly, the word field isn’t racist; associating it with anti-black sentiment or immigration is highly bizarre. No mentally balanced person hears the word field and jumps to thinking of historical slavery or immigrants being exploited in a field.
Associating the word field with these beliefs about black people and immigrants is actually racist and highly reductionist, which is exactly what USC is engaging in here.
Thirdly, even if field – or any other word – was racist, banning words doesn’t stop racism.
If anything, it just gives them a glimmer of forbidden allure; people who are racist will obviously continue to use any word they wish to use, regardless of some faculty regulation.
Another perfectly good word is being canceled: The USC School of Social Work is nixing the word “field” as in “field work” & “going into the field.” USC thinks this has something to do with white supremacy. Please stop. pic.twitter.com/4AzzrJ3tV8
— Gail Heriot (@GailHeriot) January 11, 2023
The Bottom Line
Every word has a history, just like every place, every language, and every group. If we went back through the English language and deleted every word with any prejudice in its history, we’d end up with the whole language gone.
Woke extremism like this and word policing are the signs of special interest groups and academic folks with far too much time on their hands.
This article appeared in StatesmanPost and has been published here with permission.
