The word “Orwellian” is overused but this is actually Orwellian. 404 Media reports:
While responding to the most damaging wildfires in the history of California, FEMA employees received an order “for immediate compliance” this week that states they must immediately change their vocabulary to comply with the Trump Administration’s preferred terminology on gender and immigration.
For example, FEMA employees are no longer allowed to call undocumented immigrants “migrants” or “undocumented individuals,” they must instead call them “undocumented aliens or illegal aliens.” FEMA can no longer refer to the idea of “integration,” it must begin to say “assimilation.”
The subject line of the email was “For Immediate Compliance.”
“While the chart presents examples of terminology that should be replaced, it should not be considered to be comprehensive, particularly in the immigration space. Please consult your program counsel for additional language if you are unsure,” the email says.
It’s happening all over the government. Check this out:
Last year, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded its Nobel Prize in economic sciences to a trio of researchers based at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and University of Chicago. Their work assessed “how institutions are formed and affect prosperity.” The team’s 2000 paper, “The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation,” for example, argued that the difference in wealth between Europe and Africa is largely a function of the former having more robust institutions.
Were that paper submitted today to the National Science Foundation for funding, however, it likely wouldn’t have been approved. The NSF supports research considering “how social, economic, political, cultural and environmental forces affect people’s lives,” but the introduction to the paper includes the words “inclusion,” “institutional” and “political” — all of which are red flags for reviewers during the second Trump administration.
As The Post reported on Tuesday, NSF staff have been comparing existing grants to a lengthy list of terms to establish whether the work being conducted violates President Donald Trump’s executive orders uprooting “DEI,” a catchall term for programs aimed at addressing historic systems of discrimination.
Staff have been asked to look at the title or abstract of the research proposal, checking whether any of the worrisome terms — like “gender” or “status” — appear. Then staffers consider the project summary and, finally, the project description. If any of the terms — like “advocate” or “trauma” or “women” — appear, the proposal is flagged. There are about 100 terms included in the review. (Also included: “inequities,” “racial,” and “female,” though not “male.”)
You can’t use the word “women” or “female” in a scientific paper. Wow. And that’s not all: