They Banned ‘Equity’ and ‘Diversity,’ But Left Out ‘Undereducated’

When censorship disguises itself as policy, ignorance becomes power.

I’ve been writing grants since the 1990s, back when everything came with an acronym — from TANF to ESG to CDBG. If you didn’t speak fluent “grantese,” you were lost. But behind all that alphabet soup was meaning — and intent. Each acronym represented a system trying, however imperfectly, to solve real problems.

Fast forward to today, and we’re in a different kind of linguistic maze — one built not on complexity, but on control. Across the country, government agencies are quietly removing words like diversity, equity, inclusion, and climate change from funding guidelines and public documents.

As someone who’s spent over three decades translating community needs into policy language, I can tell you: when we lose the words, we lose the will to act. And the irony? The one word they didn’t ban —- — explains exactly how we got here.

If you haven’t seen it yet, PEN America has compiled the growing list of banned and flagged words here — and it’s both eye-opening and terrifying.

From a development standpoint, this creates a chilling effect. When you remove key language, you remove clarity, accuracy, and the ability to describe the real work happening in communities. How do we talk about racial disparities without using the word “race”? How do we fund gender-based violence prevention if we can’t say “gender”?

At the same time, I understand why some funders — particularly public agencies — want to avoid political backlash. Words like equity or DEI have been turned into lightning rods. What we’re witnessing is not neutrality — it is fear disguised as policy. A quiet rollback of progress through language control.

This isn’t new. We’ve been here before. When certain truths make people uncomfortable, they get renamed, reframed, or removed.

During Jim Crow, language was used to obscure injustice — “separate but equal” sounded neutral, but it institutionalized segregation. Today, the same playbook has returned, dressed in bureaucratic memos and grant guidelines.

And while MAGA America cheers this as a “return to common sense,” it’s really a return to control — a modern literacy test where only the “approved” words are allowed. Ironically, the undereducated — the word that didn’t make the banned or flagged list — are often the ones most manipulated by it.

For those in the nonprofit and public sectors, this isn’t theoretical. It means rewriting proposals to say less, hiding intent behind coded language, or losing funding for simply naming injustice. It means our clients — the people we serve — become invisible again.

Imagine trying to justify a program addressing maternal mortality without mentioning “Black women”, “pregnant persons” or “fetus.” Or explaining a community food program without saying "diverse community.” It’s not just absurd — it’s dangerous.

Language is power. Every grant writer knows that. The moment we can’t name the problem; we can’t solve it.

As someone who’s been in this field long enough to remember when “women’s empowerment” was considered radical, I can tell you this: the banning of words isn’t about clarity. It’s about control. And when the government tries to legislate language, democracy itself is on the line.

-Keesha Gibson is a development strategist, author, and founder of Gibson Consulting & Solutions LLC. With over 30 years of experience in nonprofit leadership and grant strategy, she helps organizations turn clarity into capital. Learn more at kgibsonllc.com.