A new South Dakota policy to stop the use of gender pronouns by public university faculty and staff in official correspondence is also keeping Native American employees from listing their tribal affiliations in a state with a long and violent history of conflict with tribes.
Two University of South Dakota faculty members, Megan Red Shirt-Shaw and her husband, John Little, have long included their gender pronouns and tribal affiliations in their work email signature blocks. But both received written warnings from the university in March that doing so violated a policy adopted in December by the South Dakota Board of Regents.
“I was told that I had 5 days to remove my tribal affiliation and pronouns,” Little said in an email to The Associated Press. “I believe the exact wording was that I had ‘5 days to correct the behavior.’ If my tribal affiliation and pronouns were not removed after the 5 days, then administrators would meet and make a decision whether I would be suspended (with or without pay) and/or immediately terminated.”
The policy is billed by the board as a simple branding and communications policy. It came only months after Republican Gov. Kristi Noem sent a letter to the regents that railed against “liberal ideologies” on college campuses and called for the board to ban drag shows on campus and “remove all references to preferred pronouns in school materials,” among other things.
Ironically enough, I worked with an old, salty captain for the better part of a decade who’s name was Kelly. Never had his pronoun in his email signature that I recall. He is long retired now. And that is a stupid anecdotal argument, just surprisingly relevant and felt obligated to throw it out there.
I honestly agree, it is a simple thing to change if you can control how everyone thinks. Unfortunately, when you work in government, what people think is expensive. Weighing the chances of a successful or even unsuccessful lawsuit and poor employee morale vs pissing off constituents that vote on the next ballot measure to fund your department or for the council member that oversees your department is a decision that usually leads to left handed solutions like “In completely unrelated news, please use this signature line template for the sake of uniformity”
Given the fact that this was a hot topic already, I am sure lawyers or at least HR was involved in their decision and whatever backlash comes they probably already anticipated it.
Very relevant anecdote! There are definitely a lot of different attitudes to names and pronouns outside the context of gender identity. I personally don’t really mind when people get my name wrong, I’ve got a common name spelt a little differently. On the flip side I’ve worked with “Matt”'s that are very serious about not being called “Mat”, and others still who will refuse to respond if you shorten their full name.
That’s a good point. Honestly, given other headlines I’ve seen and also things I’ve experienced in my own working life it wouldn’t surprise me if HR or legal wasn’t involved (or were steam rolled by a signature happy leader surrounded by too many yes-men). In saying that, I’d think it’s more likely that they were.
This comment will serve as my springboard to go and find my favourite, gender neutral word for “yes-man”.
I am pretty sure sycophant is gender neutral.
There it is!