MARYANN AYIM

The debate surrounding political correctness is hampered by misunderstand-
ings so fundamental that one must consider whether it is fueled by a passion
to achieve understanding and truth or a desire to make mischief. Mischief,
however, like political correctness, is a mischievous term, for it makes light of
serious concerns in ways that are inappropriate. The debate itself promotes
this making light, for one of its deepest misunderstandings is the reduction of
serious moral considerations to matters of mere etiquette. One can dismiss
demands for political correctness, unlike moral or ethical improvement, as
interfering, irrational, or hysterical.

In this milieu, the imposition of labels and categories will be more highly
fraught with difficulty than usual; nonetheless, it is necessary to introduce
some labels to render the discussion intelligible. Hence, with some misgiv-
ings, I identify the two major positions on political correctness as the liberal
position and the reform position. One of my misgivings is that liberal ¹⁵ usually
connotes reform, suggesting a system both desirous and capable of eliminat-
ing deficiencies within, and hence capable of self-correction. The opposition
of liberal, to reform, thus seems antithetical to part of the established mean-
ing of liberal. Nonetheless, the position that I identify as the liberal position
on political correctness is strongly distinguished from the position I have
called reform in terms of whether or not universities should comply with re-
form measures for more inclusive, more positive, and less stereotypic lan-
guage and curriculum.

The term liberal appears to be a misnomer for another reason as well; a
position that urges that any form of expression, no matter how sexist or
racist, ought to be protected within the university in order to promote aca-
demic freedom and higher academic standards, appears to smack more of
conservatism than liberalism. Ironically, this is also true of the reform posi

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