I'd also like to point out that the definition of political correctness, as it's used colloquially, doesn't change just because you say it does. I also don't think that using the term political correctness in the sense that practically everyone understands it constitutes a deliberate misconstrual. Also, to the authors point, I don't think the majority of commenters on the right (when did this become a discussion of partisan politics again?) are talking about "the expectation of adherence to the norms of basic decency, like refraining from derogatory epithets" when they rail against political correctness. More often it seems they are railing against the perceived suppression of their unwelcome beliefs and ideas. Hence my comment to the effect of "don't dish it out if you can't take it."
As for the second passage you copy/pasted, I don't see how that disagrees with what I said.
Of course many of the policies enacted on campuses are what you might call penny smart, pound foolish, but that doesn't mean that the intention is bad, or that we should not even try. It's unfortunate that many of these policies are seen to have a chilling effect on campuses, but I don't feel that asking college students to think before speaking is unreasonable, especially if the net benefit is reducing bigotry, racism, and prejudice. Perhaps these methods are not the most effective, but I don't exactly see the author offering up any better solutions. He seems content to complain about the dozen or so people he's met that were made to feel uncomfortable by these policies, while ignoring the many generations of people who have suffered far worse.
Also, since you seem to have read the article more thoroughly than I, what do you make of the authors closing statement, where he says,
When we talk about political correctness and its many florid manifestations, so much in the news of late, we are talking not only about racial injustice and other forms of systemic oppression, or about the coddling of privileged youth, though both are certainly at play. We are also talking, or rather not talking, about the pathologies of the American class system. And those are also what we need to deal with.
Seems a bit convoluted to me. Is he arguing that we should ignore addressing racism in favor of some sort of attack on the American class system or what?