In a time of political correctness universities strive to appear inclusive and accepting, but the metaphors some professors use to characterize ESL writers suggest that less tolerant attitudes lie below the surface. I recently heard a university professor say, “Do what you can to clean up the ESLs [students] so that when they get up to me they can write a decent essay.” It is no coincidence that she speaks of a time when these students get “up” to her course level. This kind of unconscious use of an exclusionary metaphor is typical in some universities where content faculty perceive of ESL students’ writing issues as being outside the realm of their responsibility. Some metaphors I have heard characterize ESL writers as aberrant “outsiders” who do not belong to the academic mainstream, or as sick “patients” who are unfit for college writing. This article examines both the causes and effects of such negative metaphors, and it suggests ways that content faculty might collaborate with ESL specialists to better support second language writers. This article also proposes a more positive metaphor, one that characterizes an ESL writer’s development in terms of “growth.”