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.
The party of small government is now regulating your email signatures.
Noem says shut up and work or she’ll shoot your dog
If you keep your dog on a reserve she can’t get to it.
🐕🔫👩👧
“Hey we have some pretty serious and urgent problems that need sorting out, shall we get to work?”
“Nah, let’s fuck around with pronouns in emails.”
“We’re here to create problems, not solve them!”
I’m failing and firing everyone on campus who doesn’t immediately start reporting EVERY use of EVERY pronoun in EVERY email.
Swamp those mother fuckers .
That sounds like a clear first amendment violation to me. It’s not like a political affiliation either, gender and ethnic background are core to identity
On the one hand, I see what you’re saying. It sounds much like something my savior Jesus would say.
On the other hand, something something fuck them queers and Injuns.
The first amendment doesnt apply to governmental communications.
Its the reason that things are able to be censored in public schools.
The reason things can be censored in schools is because of the “bong hits 4 Jesus” case that went to the Supreme Court who said the school taking it down didn’t violate their freedom of speeech because “it could reasonably seen as promoting drug use at a school event”.
Fucking stupid case because if I recall it was at a parade for the Olympic torch coming through their town (doesn’t sound like a school event to me) and was not on school property.
Just a kid who happened to go to school being harassed, outside of school, by a principal at a public parade in their town, for holding a silly sign.
So what is there a caveat to 1A that says, “Congress can make no law […] unless that speech or expression may reasonably be seen as promoting drug use”?
What a bullshit country run by octogenarian Christians who just won’t leave people the fuck alone.
They’re not even pretending it’s “just” about pronouns anymore. Now it’s just overt racism. Not surprised they went for the indigenous first.
Incidentally, there are over 70,000 indigenous Americans living in South Dakota. Considering the state has less than a million people, that’s not insignificant, so this is going to fuck over more than one or two people.
I mean, if those Indians would just go back to their own county, we wouldn’t have this problem.
- This comment was made possible by the Sequoia District School Board, and the Fighting Chiefs Football Team.
Land of the free
Whoever told you that is your enemy
Francis Scott Key is your enemy?
Yes, he’s actually a lich, has a lair in the USS Constitution, that’s why they call it a “museum,” to lure unwary tourists for his unholy hungers.
Government small enough to fit in your mailbox
Well that sounds legal as fuck (no it doesn’t)
So what do people call each other now? Fuckwit/fuckedwit?
Those are gender pronouns with extra steps. \s
The tittle butchers the fact. They are not forbidden the use of pronouns, but to list their preferred ones (i.e, Dr Fuckwit (she/her).
When something is this stupid (university banning the preferred pronoums) , why not display it in all it’s stupid glory?
What’s really stupid is that I know a few women with traditionally male sounding names (Ryan, Alex, etc) who add their pronouns because they are sick of people assuming they’re male, but fuck them right?
They can only call each other their names.
Jim said Jim and Larry were gonna go to the store. So Jim says to Larry, “Hey Larry, what’s on your mind?” and Larry says “Nothing, Jim. Just wondering what time Larry and Jim’d get there at this pace”. Jim checks Jim’s watch and says “Jim and Larry’ve been walking about - what - ten minutes?”.
Jim stops a second, deep in thought. Jim scratches Jim’s chin as Jim thinks. “About two I’d say”
“Alright” says Larry “Let Larry and Jim get moving then”
“Yes let Larry and Jim”
(no first person plural pronouns either)
Their names
Molave’s pronouns are inbred/colonizer.
Nazis love erasing peoples identity
There are no pronouns in symbols ♂, ♀
Just in case anyone is wondering what all the pronouns are. Here is a list of the standard, non standard, informal, and archaic pronouns in the English language
And it at least implied that you couldn’t use any of these words at all in an email. So simple phrases like; can you do this or I am able to do that. Would be out.
Personally I think we should just start using the archaic forms just to confuse people.
Personally I think we should just start using the archaic forms just to confuse people.
If I get to compose emails like I’m Frog from Chrono Trigger, I am all about it.
Thou shouldst do as thou pleases.
- Hop around
- Call everybody “thou”
- Wield a cool sword
- Probably nail Queen Leene
Yeah, methinkest I art down.
This opens the door for malicious compilance, one can report Bible quotes with pronouns and similar as bad.
Don’t forget about demonstrative pronouns such as this, that, these, those, neither, none, such.
This is usually a good point. However, from my reading of just the snippet and some quotes others posted (and without reading the article myself because I am lazy), it may be that they are prohobiting the inclusion of preferred pronouns. If that’s accurate, then it means they are refining their bigotry to be more precise.
Oh that is absolutely the intention, but who doesn’t like logical extreme
I actually looked up the standard and it is worded in a way that doesn’t explicitly prohibit any specific thing. It just gives a list of things that can be included and says anything else is prohibited. That way they are not discriminating. They are just creating a formatting standard.
But any pronoun could be your preferred pronoun or the preferred pronoun of someone receiving the e-mail, so it really is safest to avoid them entirely.
If I worked there it would br so tempting to just start writing all my emails in scots gaelic. Can’t say I’m using pronouns if you can’t read it!
Plus I’d get to see what form their xenophobia would take. Would they ban foreign languages from email too? How many things are they willing to ban before they simply oust email entirely?
Surely it should be a choice.
Republicans really aren’t fans of letting people make their own choices. You could even say that they aren’t pro-choice.
Removed by mod
I’d comply and remove that info from the signature. I’d just start every email with:
Hello,
Thanks for reading my email. In case we’re not already familiar, my pronouns are he/him and I’m affiliated with…
I think I would go with something like this:
I am female but university policy forbids me to tell you my pronouns. I have a Native American ancestry but university policy forbids me to tell you if I have a tribal affiliation.
Probably in extra-large bold text.
nah just remove all pronouns
Smith,
Name Emma Jones and sophomore Thursday General Physics Class. Writing because in class yesterday mentioned having open positions research lab. found summary of project very interesting, would like learn and talk joining lab. Time in weeks could meet?
Thank time and look forward hearing soon
Best regards,
Emma
I love this. It screams “Why use lot word when few word do trick.”
Just replace the pronouns.
“Hi. Steve was wondering if Steve could go ahead and start Steve’s next project since Steve’s current project is now in review? Steve would be working with Kevin on Steve’s next project and Steve knows that Kevin is wrapping up Kevin’s project this week so Steve and Kevin could start next week”
Doesn’t that sound so much more professional? 🙄
Yeah no pronouns in emails ever again. That’s way more fun lol
Perfectly readable, I’d bet there are some languages where “I’m” is implied
Not perfectly readable because you can’t tell who they’re referring to. Someone mentioned something in class, that’s all we know.
Hello,
Thanks for reading my email. As a large language model….
Haha
I wonder if that would be considered discrimination based on race and sex.
No, because it doesn’t impact the old, white cis-males. They’re just mad because their pronouns are “fucking” and “awful.”
Seriously. I am fucking awful? What did I do to you?
I’m a (kinda) old cis white male, and I know that they’re not talking about me, because I’m not a bigot or racist.
Yeah isn’t it funny how that works? Lol… I didn’t even register that comment as something that could ever offend or upset me. Despite fitting the descriptors… It’s almost like I know they weren’t referring to me.
My grandfather always told me, “if you think they’re talking about you, they are”, which is ominous, but true. We know when people are referring to groups that we consider ourselves members of. We are meticulous social creatures and pay attention to what people around us think of us.
Nobody reacts like that if they aren’t certain they’re being talked about.
I think it’s a good heuristic, but it’s not always true. It butts heads with the law of unintended consequences, and the law of big numbers, especially when you’re in a more global community.
I think you’re absolutely right to trust your gut, but it’s also important to verify those feelings with introspection and logic.
That’s not what was posted. They said you are also fucking awful.
But if you are scared to even question being called that, it is your right.
We’re on social media. Sometimes people are a little carless with how they write, and are maybe a little more terse than they ought to be. Taking every post completely literally and not giving people the benefit of the doubt seems a bit silly. I take no umbrage with the statement, because I know who they’re talking about, and it’s not me. I have nothing to be scared of.
Do you not know how generalizations work or are you just that fucken brain damaged? If I say “Saxons are piss bathing dipshits” that doesnt mean I hate literally everyone from southern England at worst I just hate most of them. Learn what a generalization means or jump off a cliff I dont care what you do just stop being stupid.
To be fair, we as a society have been moving away from generalizations when it comes to things people can’t control. It’s a fine line to walk.
Sure but this is the internet if ya let generalizations bother you, well youll be real bothered for a real long time.
Are you mad about people putting pronouns and tribal affiliations in their email signatures? Because, yeah, that’s fucking awful.
“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.’
“Correct the behavior” just means setting the style to bold and increasing the font size, though.
We call it doin’ a John Hancock!
A “Little, John Hancock”, if you will.
