The recent controversy surrounding the Metropolitan State University of Denver’s Writing Center guidance represents a troubling moment in American higher education—one that conflates genuine linguistic scholarship with ideologically driven pedagogy, ultimately harming the very students it purports to help. The serious intellectual and practical errors embedded in MSU Denver’s now-retracted materials should be addressed.
Legal Insurrection: Metropolitan State U. of Denver Rejects Standard American English in the Name of ‘Anti-Racism’
Metropolitan State University of Denver’s Writing Center urged educators to abandon Standard American English (SAE), labeling it a form of “Linguistic White Supremacy” in since-deleted materials published under its “Anti-Racist Practices for Your Classroom” guidance on the university’s website.
The writing center even rejected that SAE exists at all, and “fully support[s] students in using their English (whatever that may be) in communicating their thoughts and ideas,” according to a page that has since been removed from its website.
The center’s reasons for rejecting SAE include the assumption that there is a “correct” way to write, the implication that there is a “standard” when the United States does not have a regulating body, that SAE “is a social construct that privileges white communities and maintains social and racial hierarchies,” and that SAE privileges white society over other ethnicities.
MSU Denver told National Review it is aware of the content and that it does not reflect the official policy of the university.
“The University has removed that content and is working with the Writing Center to review it to ensure alignment with the institution’s mission, values and academic best practices,” an MSU Denver spokesperson told NR. “MSU Denver remains committed to rigorous academic standards and preparing all students for success in life and careers.”
The Fundamental Linguistic Fallacy
The MSU Denver Writing Center’s claim that Standard American English does not exist because “the United States does not have a regulating body” reveals a profound misunderstanding of how standardized languages are established and maintained. This argument confuses prescriptive language academies (like France’s Académie française) with descriptive linguistic standardization—a distinction fundamental to modern linguistics.
Standard American English absolutely exists as a recognizable variety of English characterized by consistent grammatical structures, vocabulary choices, and conventions that facilitate clear communication across regional, ethnic, and socioeconomic boundaries. Its existence is not dependent on governmental regulation but rather on widespread recognition and use in professional, academic, and formal contexts. The Associated Press Stylebook, the Chicago Manual of Style, and the MLA Handbook exist precisely because SAE exists as a recognized standard for professional communication.
Every major world language possesses standardized forms without regulatory bodies. German has Hochdeutsch, Arabic has Modern Standard Arabic, and Chinese has Putonghua—all functioning as lingua francas enabling communication across diverse dialectical regions. To claim these standards don’t exist because they lack official regulation is to misunderstand the very nature of linguistic standardization.
The Social Construction Argument: Valid Observation, Invalid Conclusion
The Writing Center correctly identifies that language standards are social constructs—but draws precisely the wrong pedagogical conclusion from this observation. Yes, all linguistic standards emerge from historical social processes that inevitably reflect power dynamics. This is sociolinguistics 101. However, acknowledging this reality does not justify abandoning instruction in standardized forms any more than recognizing that mathematical notation is a social construct justifies teaching mathematics without standardized symbols.
The critical error lies in conflating the socially constructed nature of linguistic standards with the erroneous claim that these standards serve no legitimate communicative function or that teaching them necessarily reinforces oppression. This represents a category mistake—confusing the origins of a system with its current utility and function.
Consider an analogy: Our calendar system is Gregorian, reflecting European Christian dominance. Does this mean we should reject standardized timekeeping as “temporal white supremacy”? Of course not. The origins of a system, however problematic, do not determine whether that system currently serves valuable social functions.
The False Binary: Standard vs. Authentic Expression
MSU Denver’s [now deleted] approach creates a false dichotomy between teaching Standard American English and honoring students’ home languages and dialects. Decades of composition research, including groundbreaking work by scholars like Geneva Smitherman, Vershawn Young, and April Baker-Bell, demonstrates that the most effective pedagogy embraces code-meshing, bidialectalism, and translingual approaches—strategies that validate students’ linguistic identities while expanding their rhetorical repertoires.
The difference is crucial: Effective multicultural pedagogy adds linguistic tools to students’ arsenals; MSU Denver’s approach would have potentially left students linguistically under-equipped for professional success. Nothing is liberating about withholding knowledge of dominant linguistic codes from students who will face employment discrimination, graduate school gatekeeping, and professional barriers if they cannot command SAE when circumstances demand it.
As Victor Villanueva, a pioneering scholar in rhetoric and composition’s multicultural turn, has argued, students need both critical awareness of language politics AND practical mastery of multiple linguistic registers. The goal is not assimilation but rhetorical sovereignty—the ability to make informed choices about language use based on audience, purpose, and context.
The Privilege of Rejection
Perhaps most troubling is that rejecting SAE instruction disproportionately harms the very populations MSU Denver claims to serve. Students from privileged backgrounds typically acquire SAE competence through immersion in educated professional environments—their parents’ workplaces, social networks, and cultural experiences. For them, explicit instruction matters less.
Students from working-class backgrounds, first-generation college students, and those from communities historically excluded from academic spaces desperately need explicit instruction in academic discourse conventions precisely because they cannot rely on passive absorption through social osmosis. To deny them this instruction under the banner of anti-racism is to practice what Brazilian educator Paulo Freire called “false generosity”—a pedagogy that maintains inequality while appearing progressive.
Research consistently demonstrates that explicit instruction in academic language conventions benefits struggling writers, English language learners, and students from non-dominant backgrounds more than any other population. Studies by literacy scholars like Lisa Delpit have shown that students of color, in particular, deserve clear, explicit instruction in “codes of power”—not condescending protection from encountering standardized conventions.
The Professional Consequences
MSU Denver’s guidance ignores the harsh reality that students will face evaluation by employers, graduate admissions committees, and professional gatekeepers who expect competence in SAE. A recent survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers found that 73% of employers consider written communication skills essential, and these employers universally expect mastery of standardized English conventions.
Medical schools, law schools, and graduate programs across disciplines evaluate applicants partly on their command of academic English. Professional licensing exams, from the bar exam to medical boards, demand fluency in standardized language. Grant proposals, technical reports, policy briefs, and scholarly publications all require conformity to SAE conventions.
By failing to prepare students for these realities, MSU Denver’s Writing Center was not liberating students from oppressive standards—it was consigning them to professional disadvantage. This represents educational malpractice masquerading as social justice.
The Conflation of Linguistic and Moral Judgment
The Writing Center materials repeatedly conflate grammatical correctness with moral or intellectual superiority—then reject the entire enterprise to avoid this conflation. But this represents a fundamental misunderstanding of linguistic evaluation.
When composition instructors mark errors in SAE conventions, they are not declaring students unintelligent or morally deficient. They are identifying mismatches between the linguistic register employed and the register expected in formal academic contexts. This is no different from pointing out that wearing athletic shorts to a formal interview, while personally authentic, may create barriers to success.
The solution is not to abandon discussion of appropriate registers but to teach students to make conscious, strategic choices about language use—what scholars call “rhetorical awareness.” Students should understand why certain contexts demand certain linguistic choices, who established these expectations, and how to navigate them strategically while maintaining their linguistic identities.
The Incoherence of Absolute Linguistic Relativism
If taken to its logical conclusion, MSU Denver’s position collapses into incoherence. If there are no standards for clear, effective written communication, on what basis does the Writing Center evaluate or improve student writing? If all linguistic choices are equally valid, what purpose does writing instruction serve?
The deleted materials claimed to “fully support students in using their English (whatever that may be)”—but this is pedagogically meaningless. Effective writing instruction necessarily involves helping students recognize when their intended meaning is unclear, when their organizational structure impedes comprehension, or when their word choices create unintended effects. All such judgments implicitly reference standards of effective communication.
Moreover, the position is self-refuting: The Writing Center’s own guidance was written in Standard American English, presumably because the authors wanted to communicate clearly with their audience. If SAE is merely “linguistic white supremacy” with no legitimate communicative function, why did they use it?
What Responsible Anti-Racist Pedagogy Actually Looks Like
Genuine anti-racist pedagogy in composition does not reject linguistic standards—it contextualizes them, demystifies them, and empowers students to deploy them strategically. This approach includes:
Historical Contextualization: Teaching students about the social and historical processes that elevated certain linguistic varieties to “standard” status, including the role of racism, classism, and linguistic imperialism.
Critical Language Awareness: Helping students recognize linguistic prejudice when they encounter it and understand the politics of language assessment.
Bidialectal Competence: Validating students’ home languages and dialects while expanding their ability to code-switch when rhetorically advantageous.
Rhetorical Sovereignty: Empowering students to make informed choices about when to employ standardized conventions and when to resist them for rhetorical effect.
Explicit Instruction: Providing clear, systematic instruction in SAE conventions precisely because marginalized students cannot rely on passive acquisition.
Code-Meshing: Teaching students how to blend linguistic varieties for particular rhetorical purposes, as demonstrated in the scholarship of Vershawn Young and other translingual theorists.
This pedagogical approach acknowledges linguistic diversity, challenges linguistic supremacy, and prepares students for professional success—all simultaneously. It does not require rejecting the teaching of standardized conventions.
The Broader Pattern of Ideological Overreach
MSU Denver’s guidance reflects a troubling pattern in contemporary higher education: the substitution of ideological sloganeering for rigorous scholarship. The materials cite the Conference on College Composition and Communication’s statement “DEMAND[ing] Black Linguistic Justice”—a document that, whatever its good intentions, represents political advocacy rather than pedagogical best practices grounded in research.
The statement’s demand that teachers “stop using academic language and standard English as the accepted communicative norm” is not supported by consensus among composition scholars, sociolinguists, or literacy researchers. It represents one ideological position within ongoing scholarly debates—a position that MSU Denver’s Writing Center adopted wholesale without apparent consideration of counterarguments or empirical evidence.
Responsible academic writing centers should base their guidance on rigorous research, established pedagogical theory, and proven instructional methods—not on ideological manifestos, however well-intentioned. The fact that MSU Denver has now removed these materials suggests belated recognition of this error.
The Damage to Institutional Credibility
Perhaps most concerning is the institutional damage caused by such guidance. When writing centers abandon their core pedagogical mission—helping students become more effective communicators—they betray student trust and undermine their own legitimacy.
Parents paying tuition expect universities to equip students with the skills necessary for professional success. Employers partnering with universities expect graduates who can communicate effectively in professional contexts. Graduate programs expect applicants with demonstrated competence in academic discourse. When writing centers actively work against these expectations under the banner of anti-racism, they create cynicism about social justice initiatives generally.
The swift removal of MSU Denver’s materials, accompanied by institutional statements emphasizing commitment to “rigorous academic standards,” suggests administrators recognized the reputational threat. But the damage to student trust—both those who relied on this misguided advice and those who now question whether their writing center provides sound guidance—cannot be easily repaired.
Conclusion: Education as Empowerment, Not Abandonment
The fundamental purpose of higher education is to expand students’ knowledge, skills, and opportunities. This necessarily includes teaching students to operate effectively in contexts beyond their immediate experience, including professional and academic contexts where standardized language conventions predominate.
Pretending these conventions don’t exist, dismissing them as mere “white supremacy,” or refusing to teach them does not liberate students—it abandons them. True liberation comes through knowledge, not through ignorance; through expanded capacity, not through artificial limitation.
As educators, we must hold two truths simultaneously: Language standards reflect historical power dynamics that we should critically examine, AND students deserve explicit instruction in these standards so they can navigate professional contexts successfully. There is no contradiction here—only the complexity of preparing students to succeed in an imperfect world while working toward a more just one.
Metropolitan State University was right to remove these misguided materials. The institution now has an opportunity to develop writing center guidance that honors linguistic diversity, challenges linguistic prejudice, teaches critical language awareness, AND prepares students for professional success through explicit instruction in standardized conventions.
This is not an easy pedagogical task. It requires nuance, sophistication, and ongoing engagement with the best scholarship in linguistics, rhetoric, and composition. But it is the task genuine anti-racist pedagogy demands—and the task students deserve.
This article was generated with the assistance of artificial intelligence tools. While efforts have been made to ensure accuracy and relevance, the content reflects AI-generated insights, but it has been carefully edited by this author.