Inclusive Language Guide

A guide for language decisions

Illustration of a diverse group of people standing together, including people of different ages, body types, and abilities.

EGAL is dedicated to educating Equity Fluent Leaders™ to ignite and accelerate change. As part of this mission, EGAL developed a case compendium that includes: (a) case studies with diverse protagonists, and (b) case studies that build “equity fluency” by focusing on DEI-related issues and opportunities. The goal of the compendium is to support professors at Haas, and business schools globally, to identify cases they can use in their own classrooms, and ultimately contribute to advancing DEI in education and business.

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Language impacts how people feel and think

It can make people feel like they belong, or be used to discriminate. Simply updating language use to be more inclusive can't solve everything, but it can be a tool used alongside other efforts.

Language is nuanced and always changing

Relying on a fixed list of words that should or shouldn't be used isn't a sustainable solution. Instead, our guide focuses on learning and establishing a mindset around inclusive language.

Use this guide to navigate language decisions

By engaging with this resource, you can assess whether expressions are harmful or inclusive and respectful, and come to your own conclusions about your language use. It takes you through a guide of research-backed questions and provides handy resources and recommendations along your journey.

Leverage our suite of resources around inclusive language

This guide can be used with a variety of other inclusive language resources. For instance, our snapshot tool shows examples of words and phrases we've reviewed using this guide. To learn more, check out these common questions about inclusive language.

When to use this guide

Here are some examples for when to use this guide:

Illustration representing uncertainty about whether to change language on a website.

Illustration representing a situation where someone wants to address non-inclusive language.

Illustration introducing situations where the Inclusive Language Guide can help.

While this guide applies beyond the contexts above, it may not be sufficient by itself in all situations. For instance, if you're interested in checking an entire body of text for non-inclusive language or determining demographic or identity terms, you may need to consult additional resources. To learn more, check out these common questions about inclusive language

How to use this guide

Walk through a series of guiding questions to help you think more deeply about language choices and whether or not they're inclusive.

Explore the guide

As with other aspects of Equity Fluent Leadership, engaging with inclusive language practices is an ongoing journey. We all make mistakes; what's important is that we don't shy away from difficult conversations, and that we strive to do better. You can view a static graphic of the guide, or check out a demo of the guide in action.

Common questions about inclusive language

The work on EGAL's Inclusive Language Guide was supported by Google. EGAL also formed and collaborated with a working group of academic and community leaders with representation across different identities and expertise. While we sought to include a variety of perspectives, this work may overrepresent certain viewpoints, as all the people involved in the project were living in the US or UK at the time of research, and are all speakers of English.Image credits: Storyset