Political correctness (adjectivally,
politically correct, commonly abbreviated to
PC) is a term primarily used as a
pejorative to describe language, policies, or measures which are intended not to offend or disadvantage any particular group of people in society; in pejorative usage, those who use the term are generally implying that these policies are excessive. The term had only scattered usage before the 1990s, usually as an ironic self-description, but entered more mainstream usage in the
United States when it was the subject of a series of articles in
The New York Times. The phrase was widely used in the debate about
Allan Bloom's 1987 book
The Closing of the American Mind, and gained further currency in response to
Roger Kimball's Tenured Radicals (1990), and conservative author
Dinesh D'Souza's 1991 book
Illiberal Education, in which he condemned what he saw as liberal efforts to advance
self-victimization,
multiculturalism through language,
affirmative action and changes to the content of school and university curriculums.