I agree that this is bad, but we've already had state mandated lists of forbidden words for years, and this is a reaction to those less explicitly defined rules.

The shift is just which layer of the establishment is making and enforcing the rules. For the past half century, that's been committees at various government agencies, academic counsels and quasi-governmental groups like the AMA, etc.

Those various entities collectively mandated forbidden words that would for instance, prevent a grant from being approved, prevent a person from getting a job or tenure or a promotion or a political appointment, or prevent a paper from being published.

There is a huge range of language policing and forbidden words, phrases and ideas. From the relatively uncontroversial things like using "person with X" as opposed to "an X person" for various conditions to the clearly controversial replacement of "mother" and "woman" with "birthgiving parent" and "assigned female at birth".

I suspect this will get challenged in court and overturned and not really matter in the long term, but maybe it's an opportunity to consider all the power structures we interface with and how they control what we write, say and think.