UK universities to cut grades for gender-insensitive language

Students at one of Britain's wellknown universities will have an impact on their grades if they fail to adhere to gender-sensitive language norms, which could impact the words including "mankind" and "layman".

According to the Freedom of Information (FoI) request, undergraduate students enrolled in a religious activism course at the University's School of Social Science have been warned that failure to use genderneutral language will impact their grades. "Language is important and highly symbolic. I thus expect you to be aware of the powerful and symbolic nature of language and use gendersensitive formulations. Failure will impact your mark," the guidelines read. It is thought to impact words like "mankind", "layman" and "sportsmanship", which should be replaced with humankind, layperson and fairness respectively. "Language is powerful and we place a high emphasis on gender-neutral language on our courses. Should any student use language which is not deemed genderneutral, they will be offered feedback as to why. Deduction of marks is taken on a case-by-case basis," a senior lecturer from the college told 'The Sunday Times', which has acquired the FoI documents.

Hull's tough stance follows moves by a number of British universities to promote gender-neutral language. Cardiff Metropolitan University's code of practice on language has a "gender-neutral term" checklist, giving alternatives for words or phrases, including using "efficient" for "workmanlike" and "supervisor" for "foreman". Bath University encourages neutral alternatives to "mankind" such as "humanity", "humans" or "people".

However, Frank Furedi, emeritus professor of sociology at Kent University, described Hull's strict stance as "linguistic policing" and a "coercive tool" to impose a conformist outlook.