Pronouns and tribal affiliations are now forbidden in South Dakota public university employee emails

[Eugene]

Source: Associated Press

Pronouns and tribal affiliations are now forbidden in South Dakota public university employee emails

BY MARGERY A. BECK
Updated 5:40 PM EDT, May 24, 2024

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.

-snip-

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/pronouns-tribal-affiliation-south-dakota-66efb8c6a3c57a6a02da0bf4ed575a5f

[raging moderate]

1. Then the European-derived employees should obey the same rule.

They should no longer be allowed to refer to the Scottish or the English or the Welsh or the Irish or the Dutch or the French or the German part of their ancestry (or to things like "Bavarian" pastry or "Italian" pizza). Turn about is fair play.

[Ocelot II]

2. Why in the world are these things so threatening to right-wingers?

What harm is done to anyone by listing one's preferred pronouns? Or if Indigenous people wish to mention their tribal affiliation? What's the big deal?

[Cha]

3. GD that puppy Killer & Liar.. the Regents Board is taking

her Fascist advice... of course.

And what's wrong with "gender pronouns" I don't understand.

[spooky3]

4. Three reactions

1) this is a public university and the rule seems to violate the First Amendment

2) taking stupid approaches like this will hurt student, faculty, and staff recruitment. South Dakota universities are not currently near the top of rankings. Why give them an added hurdle?

3) many names could be given to persons of any gender, and Americans may not be aware of gender in Chinese, Indian, and other first names. It is helpful for pronouns to be on people’s profiles so that they don’t receive correspondence beginning with awkward phrases like “Dear Madam or Sir.”

[Biophilic]

5. They are so afraid of so many things.

How do they sleep at night? Can’t be easy being this frightened.

[eppur_se_muova]

6. I would remove all pronouns from the entire body of all text ... no I, you, him, it, etc.

Nor possessive pronouns -- their, ours, etc.

Let's see how easy it is to read those messages.

[KentuckyWoman]

7. I find the pronoun thing useful actually.

I need a little help with a woman named Bryan and folks named Dharmendra or Swarna. In South Dakota I imagine getting a letter from Little Hawk Smith is not far out there. I really like that whole pronoun thing and find it very useful.

Not to mention, I find it interesting to learn a little bit about people from their signatures.