That doesn't really make sense to me. Of course the person at the receiving end is capable of determining without bias what impact something had on them - practically by definition they are the only ones.
If they're hurt by words, maybe it's irrational that they're hurt by them, but they still are. Assuming that they're being honest, "you weren't actually hurt by that" is a nonsensical statement - the person saying that has absolutely 0 evidence to make that call, and the hurt person has perfect knowledge.
I think tying it up into legal language of restitution is a mistake, no one is advocating for legal liability or even any real punishment here.
Have you ever seen a little kid fall down? And they start bawling uncontrollably? So you go over and check them out, make sure nothing is broken, and maybe you say something like "it's all right buddy, you're ok", because they aren't actually hurt.
The kid, despite having perfect knowledge, has incorrectly judged the severity of the situation. This happens with kids, because they don't have enough experience or emotional maturity to appropriately gauge their emotional responses, much like the people who write lists like this.
If you define being hurt via the subjective mental state, then the statement indeed becomes trivially true, as you point out - but then it seems quite misleading to have a single word ("hurt") cover objectively measurable physical injury, qualia of pain that we understand to be a proxy for the former (and so we have, at least in the current revision of "Elimination of Harmful Language" lists, no qualms with terminology such as "phantom pain" which implies that pain which does not correspond to real injury is in some sense less legitimate), and purely psychogenic phenomena. This makes it seem like it is a matter of consistency or principledness to respond to the last category similarly to how you would to the first, even though they are not very alike.
> I think tying it up into legal language of restitution is a mistake, no one is advocating for legal liability or even any real punishment here.
What exactly is a "real punishment"? It seems like there are certainly calls for extrajudicial liability, insofar as there is no shortage of examples where people call for damage to be done to those who "engage in harmful behaviours" (referring to hurtful words) that is in excess of what would be necessary to stop the "harmful behaviours" and more seems to be aimed at causing disutility to someone who is taken to deserve it. I assume that a Stanford employee, in any capacity, who refuses to abide by this guideline and draws any amount of attention in the process would find themselves at the receiving end of the actions of a large number of people who would try to get them fired rather quickly. Is this not a real punishment?
If they're hurt by words, maybe it's irrational that they're hurt by them, but they still are. Assuming that they're being honest, "you weren't actually hurt by that" is a nonsensical statement - the person saying that has absolutely 0 evidence to make that call, and the hurt person has perfect knowledge.
I think tying it up into legal language of restitution is a mistake, no one is advocating for legal liability or even any real punishment here.