We are writing to make known our position with regard to the recently released and highly controversial University poster entitled, "There's a Nasty Name for Everyone."

The most charitable comment one could make about this poster is that its educational objective is unclear. The poster in its current form perpetuates and amplifies a language of hate, and trivializes the seriousness of oppression by presenting very incomparable terms as equivalents.

For many of the groups represented, these words have been accompanied by humiliation, degradation, personal injury and even death. Under such circumstances the impact and significance of these words is far more powerful than "nasty."

The U.S. Supreme Court has identified some of these terms as "words which by their very utterance inflict injury . . ." The words are expressions of attitudes and behaviors which we, and many of our progressive colleagues, have committed our professional lives to eliminating.

We would like to be able to use our energies creatively and move our University forward to the truly inclusive, enabling environment we envision. Ill-advised educational efforts such as this use our abilities reactively rather than proactively.

We urge the University's central administration to rethink their decision with regard to this poster.