Florida Student Loses Credit for Using Word ‘Man’ in History Essay

A gender neutral sign is posted outside a bathroom on May 11, 2016 in Durham, North Caroli
Sarah D. Davis / Getty

A student at the University of Florida lost points on an essay assignment for his decision to use the word “man,” instead of the word “humankind.”

Student Martin Poirier received a B-minus on an essay assignment, despite his professor’s claim that the paper was “thoughtful.” The reason? He dared to use the word “man,” instead of “humankind.”

“Thoughtful paper, although the writing-mechanics errors are killing you,” Professor Jack Davis wrote at the bottom of the paper.

Davis claimed that the exercise is “not to enforce political correctness” but rather serves as “both a grammar refresher and a style and user guide.” He also claimed that students would only lose points when they violate two or more “writing-mechanics” guidelines, meaning that just the singular usage of “man” was not enough for Poirier to have his grade marked down.

“I do not lower a student’s grade for only one inconsistency, and I single out no student as an example,” Davis said.

Poirier claims that Professor Davis’ class is “certainly biased,” but that he believes “Davis is rather moderate compared to his peers and formulated the gender-neutral rule in order to be ‘by the books.’”

“It is on those grammarians who, like the rest of the academy, have eagerly stoked the slide towards gender [and] social anarchy,” Poirier claimed.

“Political correctness on college campuses goes far deeper than this one excess by this one teacher. By and large, the radical liberationist ideas go unchallenged because no truly oppositional content is presented,” he added.

Tom Ciccotta is a libertarian who writes about economics and higher education for Breitbart News. You can follow him on Twitter @tciccotta or email him at tciccotta@breitbart.com

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