What if what you are calling bloat is actually a highly effective revolutionary machine? The way the US is structured, elite schools like Stanford are the gateway to the most powerful positions in the country. Jobs like scientists, judges, lawyers, bureaucrats, federal agents, politicians, and academic staff are gated behind having an elite degree. So I actually see this as being extremely ominous and not just bullshit.
The gatekeeping function of elite universities is an incredibly important point to make, and is absolutely the most urgent reason to take this seriously.
No other reason is needed, but "principle" is being violated here. Bad ideas need to be pushed back on. I think that's true whether or not rules achieve "de facto" status, because a society's dysfunction is proportional to the degree it that lets bad rules slide "because they'll never be enforced". In this case these bad rules lay bare an ignorant and bigoted world-view that is fundamentally anti-human. It is teaching students and teachers all the wrong lessons, and ironically is not even helping the people it's claiming to want to help. It is pure and overt thought policing and Stanford, and anyone who cares about the school and its legacy, needs to clean house yesterday.
I do believe that woke language functions as a cultural signifier that keeps the elite safe and guarantees them success. This particular list is just too egregiously dumb to function correctly. I would be willing to bet that 99% of these replacements simply don't happen outside of Stanford domains, and the ones that do happen won't be due to this list.
In every day life yes. maybe. Stanford already has that secretive, anonymous discrimination report form and has encouraged students and staff to make reports. So if I speak to my friends I think nothing will happen and daily language may not change.
But the secretive reporting system will make people paranoid and when dealing with administration commissars and academic boards, I imagine the rules will be used to weed out opponents and anyone they believe does not comply with their goals.
And yes it is stupid. There are even words I am surprised they did not include like "fat". Oops, I used the word stupid.
