"Political Correctness," frequently abbreviated to PC, refers to a movement, particularly associated with university campuses and the social community of academia, that in the view of its supporters seeks to actively resist cultural tendencies toward racism, sexism, and the domination of traditional elite attitudes and in the view of its critics seeks to impose a new totalitarianism of words that cannot be said and ideas that cannot be expressed.
The most familiar form that the PC debate has taken relates to campus "speech codes" that seek to bar or restrict language felt to be racist or to be demeaning and stereotyping of other groups. Thus, "one school requires that short people be called the "vertically challenged" (Beckwith & Bauman, 1993, p. 12 n. 3). However, the PC speech debate is only one aspect of a much broader debate, which in one direction has embraced a variety of restraints upon conduct (particularly sexual conduct) on campuses and in another direction has raised the question of what the core curriculum or "canon" of courses (particularly in literature and kindred fields) ought to be at American universities. It is closely linked to, though not identical with, the debate over "multiculturalism," or what traditions and perspectives ought to be considered normative on campus, in the curriculum, and more broadly in American life.
The emphasis in the following discussion is on PC language and language codes and the debate surrounding them, but, because the PC language debate is an integral part of a broader PC cultural debate, we will in the course of this discussion consider every aspect of the PC issue, from conduct codes to the canon.
The PC debate arose from and typifies a period of deep cultural and political division in American society. The demand for political correctness on campuses arose, broadly speaking, from the political left (though it has come under sharp criticism from some on the left; se...