Word: biased
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...they had acted on studies showing that upgraded Achievement tests tended to predict academic success freshman year better than the usually-stressed Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT). But the University's shift reflects but one side of a growing debate among educators over just which test is more free of bias, whether colleges should be testing for innate ability or proven achievement, and whether any established test is really an accurate predictor of either...
...midweek, however, Graham may have begun to sense that he was treading on dangerous territory. When delegates began accusing the U.S. of escalating the arms race, he removed his earphones. He listened intently when Lutheran Bishop David Preus from Minneapolis objected to the anti-U.S. bias of the conference. Thus when it came time for Graham, the conference's star attraction, to deliver his speech, he made some attempt to modify his stance. Graham inserted into his prepared text an appeal for freedom of religious belief: "I urge all governments to respect the rights of religious believers...
...words beyond numbering zip into the mind and flash a dizzy variety of meaning into the mysterious circuits of knowing. A great many of them bring along not only their meanings but some extra freight-a load of judgment or bias that plays upon the emotions instead of lighting up the understanding. These words deserve careful handling-and minding. They are loaded...
Every word hauls some basic cargo or else can be shrugged aside as vacant sound. Indeed, almost any word can, in some use, take on that extra baggage of bias or sentiment that makes for the truly manipulative word. Even the pronoun it becomes one when employed to report, say, that somebody has what it takes. So does the preposition in when used to establish, perhaps, that zucchini quiche is in this year: used just so, in all but sweats with class bias. The emotion-heavy words that are easiest to spot are epithets and endearments: blockhead, scumbum, heel, sweetheart...
...clear up any misunderstandings caused by the recent controversy, the University should publicly declare anew that all its components--including the Center for Behavioral Sciences--do not discriminate on the basis of sexual preference. That statement will likely do little to alleviate the bias many people privately harbor toward gays. But perhaps it can allay the GSA's legitimate fears that Harvard the institution is less than evenhanded in its treatment of homosexuals...