The city of San Diego is backing off its demand that city workers stop using the phrase “Founding Fathers.”
The ban came in the city’s new “Visual and Correspondence Style Guidelines.”
It was quickly bashed as taking political correctness to “a whole new extreme.”
Brad Dacus, the chief of Pacific Justice Institute, which raised questions about the issue with the city and challenged the censorship said “When you can’t utter the phrase ‘Founding Fathers’ without possibly losing your job and you work for government, that is a sad day for free speech.”
PJI Senior Staff Attorney Matthew B. McReynolds said it was alarming that city employees should refrain from mentioning those to whom we owe our most fundamental freedoms, the Founding Fathers.
He said The manual’s inane attempt to recast the fathers as simply the ‘Founders’ reaches a level of political correctness, censorship and insensitivity toward time-honored American values that is indefensible.”
McReynolds said his organization has found “no less than 1,500 separate instances in which the Supreme Court and lower courts have invoked the ‘Founding Fathers.’” Adding “Their contributions are undeniable, and their voice indispensable to understanding good government.”
The guidelines included many other words and phrases that were no longer welcome at San Diego city hall including ‘the common man,’ ‘mankind,’ ‘manmade’ and ‘man up.’
“Even more concerning is the manual’s promotion of style over substance, to the point that employees are encouraged to omit or alter relevant research, based on subjective interpretations as to whether it includes biased or non-inclusive language.”
Last week Mayor Kevin Faulconer said in a tweet that he put a stop to the matter as soon as he heard about it, ordering the passage removed and the manual scrubbed for any remaining similar examples.