#3

Today in class we had a debate: is the term college master an instance of hate speech, and should it be changed? For those who don't know, a college master is the faculty head of a residential college. To my knowledge, the terms comes from the great British schools Oxford and Cambridge, and was adopted in the US by Harvard, Yale, etc. This debate really comes down to one point: is the offense taken by the term "college master" legitimate? Certain expressions, e.g. a swastika, are legitimately offensive. Others, such as the reactions to an email about Halloween costumes, are not. So what about this case?

I say no: master has a multitude of meanings, such as a slaveholder, or an expert at a certain subject. In this case, it is clear that the meaning has nothing to do with slavery or racial attitudes. And if you read that offensive meaning into it, it's your own problem. An analogy would be "fire retardant", which is clearly not offensive, although someone could read offense into "retardant".

Sadly when the votes were counted, the side for the motion prevailed. But despite the undercurrent of SJWness in our class, I still have hope, for everyone remained civil, and we did indeed have a dialogue (oh how I hate this phrase).