Keller @ Large: UNH's 'Bias-Free Language Guide' Takes Political Correctness Too Far

BOSTON (CBS) – No doubt, there's a lot to do on the Durham campus of the University of New Hampshire.

But according to a "Bias-Free Language Guide" that's now been removed from their website, there are limits to what you can appropriately say.

For instance, the school says not to say "foreigners," the so-called bias-free language guide says. "International people" is preferred.

The term "opposite sex" is deemed too divisive. Say "other sex," the guide urges.

And they'd rather you didn't say "American" to refer to, well, Americans. The rationale is that "U.S. Citizen" or "resident" avoids giving short shrift to South America.

In Harvard Square on Thursday, WBZ-TV got mixed reactions to the UNH speech code.

"New people that are coming in, if they feel insulted, maybe we should think about speaking like this," said one man.

But a female Army veteran who talked to WBZ, while acknowledging there "other folks that are at the table other than just us," said "I will definitely continue to call myself an American."

And Cambridge attorney and civil libertarian Harvey Silverglate, co-founder of the campus speech code watchdog group Freedom for Individual Rights in Education, says the UNH document is "absolutely abhorrent."

"This is a politically-correct regime that is seeking to completely make over college campuses all over the country,  and to a frightening extent they are succeeding," Silverglate said. "You can say things as a free citizen protected by the First Amendment in Harvard Square that, if you said them in Harvard Yard, you'd be brought up on charges."

The speech guide, which was drawn up by staff and students, has been renounced as offensive by UNH President Mark Huddleston, who specifically singled out the suggested substitute for "American" for scorn.

"The only UNH policy on speech is that it is free and unfettered," Huddleston said.