State Dept. to Purge “Non-Inclusive” Language in Agency Materials; Traditional Nuclear Family, Stereotypical Gender Roles

In the latest move by a U.S. government agency to appease leftists, the State Department is quietly overhauling language used in agency materials that may be considered exclusionary or offensive. Judicial Watch obtained a copy of a memo from a State Department source asking the agency’s 69,000 employees to report “outdated and non-inclusive language in Department of State policies, documents or webpages.” The directive was issued this month by the State Department’s Office of Civil Rights (S/OCR) and it provides an “outdated form submission” for employees to note specific examples of what amounts to politically incorrect language that is to be “updated.”

The S/OCR offers several examples to guide employees through the process of reporting policies, documents and web pages that do not use “inclusive” language. This includes obsolete racial terms or language that implies “preference for the traditional nuclear family structure and stereotypical gender roles,” according to the document. Other examples include using the outdated phrase “handicapping condition” rather than the contemporary word “disability.” The widely distributed memo ends by encouraging employees to participate in a process that can easily be compared to Marxist language manipulation. “If you are aware of policies or documents containing outdated language or instances where language could be more inclusive S/OCR would welcome you completing the form at the link below with the relevant outdated language information for our office’s follow-up.”

Most major federal government agencies—including the departments of Homeland Security, Justice, Defense, Health and Labor—have civil rights offices that handle discrimination and other related issues. All of them are generously funded by American taxpayers and their mission statements are quite similar, though they operate individually. Like many of its counterparts, the S/OCR claims its mission is to propagate fairness, equity and inclusion at the Department of State. Furthermore, its business is conflict resolution, employee and supervisor assistance and diversity management. “S/OCR manages the Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) administrative process for the Department and works to prevent employment discrimination through outreach and training,” according to the S/OCR’s mission statement.

The State Department is hardly alone in caving into the increasingly powerful leftist mob’s demands for political correctness. Just last week Judicial Watch obtained outrageous, anti-bias training materials from the Department of Defense that are used to train service members on diversity topics. The material essentially indoctrinates troops with anti-American and racially inflammatory training. It features chapters on power and privilege in which cadets are taught that privilege is linked to various forms of identity including sexual orientation and religion. Students are also taught that there is “sexual orientation privilege” associated with the “marginalization of non-heterosexual lifestyles and the view that heterosexuality is the normal sexual orientation.” The guide also notes that “Statistics show Whites are the majority in senior leadership positions (i.e., flag officers, general officers, and Senior Executive Service) and lend itself [sic] to the perpetuation of racism.” A section addressing “Cross-Cultural Communication” states: “Gender includes the social construction of masculinity and femininity within a culture and incorporates his or her biological, psychological, and sociological characteristics. Sex refers to a person’s biological or physical self. Although sex determines who will bear children, gender accounts for our roles in life and how these life roles affect our communication.”

The nation’s premier federal law enforcement agency has also caved into demands from the left. Several years ago, Judicial Watch uncovered records showing that the terrorist front group Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) got the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to purge anti-terrorism material determined to be offensive to Muslims. Judicial Watch obtained hundreds of pages of FBI documents with details of the shocking arrangement and subsequently published a special in-depth report on the subject. The same Islamic activists that strong-armed the FBI later demanded an overhaul in the way all law enforcement officers are trained in the United States.