BROOKE GLADSTONE: We're back with On the Media. I'm Brooke Gladstone. For most of the history of American education, school text books have had only one or two authors. But some time in the '70s, special interest groups got involved representing, say, Native Americans or Southern Baptists or atheists -- each claiming that their group was misrepresented or under-represented in texts. Publishers began to examine what could be latent racism or godlessness or godliness in its text books, and lists of unacceptable terms like "Man of war," "Satan" and "Navajo" sprouted up as guides on how to cater to the pressure groups. Today text books are produced by committees of authors, editors and consultants, all dependent on those lists. Diane Ravitch has detailed all this in her new book, The Language Police. Bob recently spoke to her about the outbreak of self-censorship.

DIANE RAVITCH: There are about -- well, I'd say in excess of 500 words that I've been able to identify that are not supposed to appear. I guess the one that I find the most objectionable is "brotherhood." There are also words like "extremist" and "cult" and "dogma." Some publishers -- not all, but some of them --will not use them because they're considered ethnocentric words. There are also many topics that are removed from most text books and testing. The State of Michigan for instance has in its bias guidelines: you can't have a question about (if you can believe this) flying saucers or aliens because that imp-- might imply evolution. [LAUGHTER] You can't have a story about, about a hurricane or an earthquake because that might upset someone. You can't have a story about witchcraft or sorcery. You can have a story that mentions pumpkins. You can't have a story that represents social inequality. I mean it just goes on and on to the point where all you're left with are these very, very bland passages.

BOB GARFIELD:What do you suppose is motivating the people who are excising these terms from text books? Are they well-meaning or are they just caving in to special interests?

DIANE RAVITCH: It's both. I think that in, in the first instance the people who do this think that they're doing a good thing. Also the text book publishers have been through a lot of very unpleasant experiences where the state board of education, particularly in California and Texas, will say we can't adopt your book unless you make these changes. Since they know they're go-- they will be confronted with demands for changes, they've internalized all those demands and now as a matter of form will excise words and topics before the state department of education takes a look at their book.

BOB GARFIELD:It's kind of ironic that at the same time as we're witnessing this ongoing official sensitization of language, on the flip side the popular culture is getting ever more coarse. Is it possible that the very sensitivities of the official classes is actually fueling the, the growing vulgarization of the pop culture?

DIANE RAVITCH: Believe it or not a couple of years ago Camille Paglia wrote an essay in which she made exactly that argument -- that there is this kind of enforced politeness that goes on for hour after hour and then kids get out of school and they call each other horrible names and they listen to music in all kinds of vulgarity and -- is the coin the realm. There's such a disconnect between the broader culture which is very open and very free form and what kids encounter in school that I think it creates both boredom and cynicism. They realize what they read in school is totally detached from reality.

BOB GARFIELD:Some of these sensitivities are clearly absurd and over the top, but aren't some of these others actually perfectly reasonable reactions to legitimate sensitivities by people who have been historically stigmatized by language? I can certainly see how the blind don't want to be identified as "the blind" as if their whole existence flows out of their visual disability. I can see how they would want to be known as "people who are blind."

DIANE RAVITCH: That's possible. I, I think as far as the stigma issue goes, I can understand people saying "I would like to be referred to otherwise." I just think that -- I don't like the banning of words that are perfectly legitimate, and I think even ethnic slurs have their place in literature. It would be hard to read a lot of our late 20th century literature and remove every word that was offensive to anybody. You'd be left with something that would look very much like a text book.

BOB GARFIELD: Well, Diane, thank you very much!