It’s almost beyond parody: Colleges around the country have started using a new word for graduates — “alumnx.”
Similar to “Latinx,” the new word “alumnx” is meant as a politically correct gender-neutral term. Right now, the singular “alumnus” and “alumna” are gendered words, while the plural form “alumni” is used to refer to both male and female graduates. Apparently, the idea of using gendered terms for individual alumni is offensive or something.
There is no official dictionary definition of “alumnx,” at least not yet, since the word is little more than the brainchild of academic elites. A google search of the word “alumnx” pulls up a host of results, most of which are either directly from colleges and universities or from university-sponsored research. The University of California San Diego, University of Michigan, Syracuse University, Duke University, and a host of other schools have official resources that refer to “alumnx.”
The term appears to be a fairly recent invention. For instance, the University of Michigan listed its “outstanding alumni award” every year until 2019, when the school changed the title to the “outstanding alumnx” award.
Woke academia’s invention of “alumnx” is laughable and ridiculous. Of course, colleges should include all students and graduates, but inventing a new word for no reason accomplishes nothing. All it does is continue to embarrass the university system and prove just how out of touch many academic elites are.
To most reasonable people, inventing new words for absolutely no reason is absurd and pointless. But it’s hardly surprising that such a ridiculous trend has emerged in American higher education.
The reason schools don’t see the absurdity in things like “alumnx” is because they are allowed to exist within a bubble of unchallenged wokeness and liberal thought. The fact is that there are simply way too many liberal professors in colleges. When the ratio of liberal to conservative professors is at minimum five to one, something as outlandish as inventing a new word for wokeness’ sake alone starts to seem reasonable. And that’s a crucial sign that increasingly, not much critical thinking is actually happening on campus.
Jordan Lancaster (@jordylancaster) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog and a senior at Wake Forest University.
