In academia these days, you can get into trouble for what you say. Megan Neely, a Duke assistant professor in biostatistics, lost an administrative position for pleading with Chinese students to speak more English—for the sake of their careers. Calling them out (in an email) was considered insensitive. Jeffrey McCutcheon, an associate professor at the University of Connecticut, had to apologize for suggesting that students who claimed excessive test anxiety (and thus sought special accommodation) might simply be unprepared rather than suffering from a disability.[1] That too was considered insensitive.
Until now, I have been fairly comfortable writing about history. True, I’ve found some words you shouldn’t use, such as “barbarians,” but that’s okay with me. We don’t have to echo the Romans or their prejudices. But here’s one I’m beginning to wonder about: “universal.”
A couple of months ago in class, I said (all too confidently) that some human tendencies can explain similarities between the history of one region and that of another. The explanation doesn’t have to be that the regions were connected through trade or other contact. I gave a few examples: governments tend to grow; people tend to rebel; knowledge accumulates; cultural similarities tend to support territorial consolidation, etc.
I was criticized (by another student) for “universalizing.”