Every so often in this media business, you read something that makes you do a double take — because you feel dumber for having read it.

That happened to me when I came across a report by Complete Colorado about how Metropolitan State University of Denver’s writing center expressly rejects the use of Standard American English (SAE).

Why? Because it’s a “social construct that privileges white communities” — and, somehow, an instrument of “linguistic white supremacy.”

You can’t make this stuff up.

Of course it’s a social construct. That’s how societies establish shared norms for communication. While the United States lacks a formal regulatory body overseeing language, our society has nevertheless adopted widely accepted standards for writing and speech.

That isn’t “oppression.” It’s how communication works.

Apparently, MSU’s writing center disagrees.

“The MSU Denver Writing Center rejects the notion that Standard American English (SAE) exists for many reasons,” they claimed on the university’s website.

Yet at the same time, SAE is deemed problematic because it “(assumes) there is a ‘correct’ and ‘standard’ way to write and speak.” The word “standard,” they argue, implies formal regulation, which America lacks. Still, SAE supposedly “maintains social and racial hierarchies” and “creates a destructive binary between SAE and Black or Hispanic Englishes.”

American English, thy identity is racist.

They also argued English is a “living language” that “regularly changes,” citing slang like “ghosting” as an example. Except that has nothing to do with language standards and everything to do with new words and meanings entering the lexicon. SAE still provides “fixed norms of spelling, grammar, and usage,” according to Dictionary.com — streamlining communication and expectations across the country, from business to media.

So, is SAE a racist social construct, or does it simply not exist?

You can’t have it both ways. And that contradiction exposes how hollow the argument really is — especially coming from an academic institution.

The center’s mission is to “help with any writing assignment, at any stage of the writing process.” It’s where students go when they’re struggling to complete a paper or need help catching grammatical errors in an essay.

While there’s no “one-size-fits-all approach to writing” (as a writer, I can attest), it’s essential for students to graduate college capable of following basic conventions that employers, colleagues and clients will always expect.

Let’s be real: In the name of ideology, students are being set up to fail after college.

That’s made plain in the section on plagiarism — where the center justifies using another person’s work and passing it off as your own. The webpage offered excuses like coming from a country that views copying as “an homage,” and there’s “nothing wrong with that.”

Even more absurd, it asserts students lack confidence and fear “being judged for their writing skills.”

Earth to MSU: This is college, not elementary school. What kind of academic institution concerns itself with fear of grading and treats it as an injustice? The very purpose of higher education is to learn, grow and become prepared for the real world — where allowances aren’t made for feelings.

And this is the writing center that’s supposed to help students excel.

But there’s a deeper issue here — extending far beyond a single webpage. This brand of linguistic relativism shows up elsewhere across our universities.

On the one hand, MSU’s writing center discouraged professors from making “assumptions of American cultural knowledge” when creating writing prompts. Yet the university has no problem imposing American ideologies on other cultures.

As one of three institutions on Denver’s Auraria Campus, MSU celebrates Latinx Heritage Month — using terminology that de-genderizes Spanish, a language with specific conventions for verb conjugation, grammatical rules and, notably, gendered nouns. The stated goal is, in part, to avoid privileging “non-indigenous and non-Black identities.”

Yet virtually no one outside the United States has adopted “Latinx.” The Royal Spanish Academy expressly rejects gender-neutral language. Some scholars have even labeled this “linguistic imperialism” — imposing English-language ideological preferences onto another language and culture.

Oh, the irony of self-described “anti-imperialists” discovering cultural appropriation and flying it to new heights.

Even in the United States, Pew Research found just 4% of Hispanics describe themselves as “Latinx.” Among the 47% who’ve even heard of it, 75% say it flat-out shouldn’t be used.

Let’s be honest: This isn’t about empowering students. It’s about abandoning American English norms to lower academic expectations for minorities — rather than working to lift those students up — while simultaneously lecturing the world’s 600 million Spanish speakers that their language is sexist and needs fixing.

Following Complete Colorado’s report, the webpage — dated Oct. 14, 2022 — conspicuously vanished from MSU’s website. That timing is telling. That it remained live for years until public scrutiny says everything about the subversive ideology behind it. Complete Colorado was able to grab screenshots before the page disappeared.

If “linguistic white supremacy” and anti-SAE ideology guide any aspect of a college campus — faculty, policies or even the writing center — they’re missing the point. Education is about understanding the world, explaining ideas clearly and preparing students for life after campus.

No wonder our education system is crumbling.

Here’s a university writing center that can’t even write a rational argument — and is teaching students they don’t have to, either.

Jimmy Sengenberger is an investigative journalist, public speaker, and longtime local talk-radio host. Reach Jimmy online at Jimmysengenberger.com or on X (formerly Twitter) @SengCenter.