this post was submitted on 25 May 2024
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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.

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[–] bradv@lemmy.ca 396 points 7 months ago (1 children)

The party of small government is now regulating your email signatures.

[–] NOT_RICK 160 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Noem says shut up and work or she’ll shoot your dog

[–] FenrirIII 24 points 7 months ago

🐕🔫👩‍👧

[–] SatansMaggotyCumFart 14 points 7 months ago

If you keep your dog on a reserve she can’t get to it.

[–] NOT_RICK 187 points 7 months ago (3 children)

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

[–] FlyingSquid 67 points 7 months ago

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.

[–] Plastic_Ramses 13 points 7 months ago (1 children)

The first amendment doesnt apply to governmental communications.

Its the reason that things are able to be censored in public schools.

[–] prole@sh.itjust.works 17 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

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.

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[–] FlyingSquid 161 points 7 months ago (2 children)

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.

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[–] Churbleyimyam@lemm.ee 97 points 7 months ago (1 children)

"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."

[–] lolcatnip@reddthat.com 31 points 7 months ago

"We're here to create problems, not solve them!"

[–] zipzoopaboop@lemmynsfw.com 77 points 7 months ago (2 children)
[–] OutlierBlue@lemmy.ca 24 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

Whoever told you that is your enemy

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[–] Everythingispenguins 74 points 7 months ago (6 children)

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.

[–] dual_sport_dork 20 points 7 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] Enkers@sh.itjust.works 13 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Thou shouldst do as thou pleases.

[–] dual_sport_dork 13 points 7 months ago
  • Hop around
  • Call everybody "thou"
  • Wield a cool sword
  • Probably nail Queen Leene

Yeah, methinkest I art down.

[–] lemmydripzdotz456 15 points 7 months ago (3 children)

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.

[–] Everythingispenguins 15 points 7 months ago

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.

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[–] ZILtoid1991 13 points 7 months ago

This opens the door for malicious compilance, one can report Bible quotes with pronouns and similar as bad.

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[–] rez_doggie 67 points 7 months ago

Nazis love erasing peoples identity

[–] catloaf@lemm.ee 67 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I wonder if that would be considered discrimination based on race and sex.

[–] ZoopZeZoop 41 points 7 months ago (17 children)

No, because it doesn't impact the old, white cis-males. They're just mad because their pronouns are "fucking" and "awful."

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[–] Garbanzo 66 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (3 children)

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...

[–] funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works 81 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (8 children)

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

[–] Entertainmeonly@lemmy.blahaj.zone 33 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I love this. It screams "Why use lot word when few word do trick."

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[–] RagingRobot 25 points 7 months ago

Yeah no pronouns in emails ever again. That's way more fun lol

[–] bobzilla 14 points 7 months ago

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? 🙄

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[–] lolcatnip@reddthat.com 12 points 7 months ago

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.

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[–] grue 58 points 7 months ago (2 children)

“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.

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[–] DrummXYBA@sh.itjust.works 38 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Surely it should be a choice.

[–] Heartwotalk@lemmynsfw.com 56 points 7 months ago

Republicans really aren't fans of letting people make their own choices. You could even say that they aren't pro-choice.

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[–] TrumpetX@programming.dev 36 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I think the "everyone anyone your pronouns" thing in email, slack, whatever is dumb. But if I lived in SD, I'd start doing it right about now.

[–] FlyingSquid 35 points 7 months ago (15 children)

I originally thought it was a bit silly, but then I realized that there are a lot of cisgendered people who just have names that people can't tell whether they are male or female, either because it's gender-neutral or it's unusual, so it kind of makes sense for a lot of people who aren't queer as well and are just tired of people misgendering them via email.

[–] Ballistic_86 20 points 7 months ago (3 children)

It is important for cis people to do so for one important reason on top of what you said, if only trans people need to put their pronouns in their profiles is just another way to identify them.

If everyone does it, nobody feels awkward about doing it.

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[–] ebc@lemmy.ca 19 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I'm one of these, my name is definitely male but when you read it it's really easy to confuse with the female version. It doesn't help that it's really rare in my generation while the female version is much more popular. All this resulted in me getting misgendered on a regular basis. A few examples:

  • as a teenager, I won a prize with a monetary award. The check was for the female version of my name.
  • when I got my first house, I signed up ONLINE for the electric utility. The invoice ended up being addressed to the female version of my name. I sure as heck didn't make a mistake in my own name when signing up, so someone over there must have "corrected" my name
  • I once went to a week-long course, where we each were assigned an individual room, but bathrooms and showers were shared across all rooms on that floor. I was assigned a room on the ladies' floor, which took me a while to realize as I thought it was just mixed-gendered.
  • and that's without counting the hundreds of times teachers took attendance. I'd say at least half of them got it wrong.

Anyway, I thought pronouns were a bit of a weird thing for trans and non-binary people, but as a very cis man who's had issues with people reading my name wrong, I put my pronouns in my signature now.

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[–] Shou 34 points 7 months ago (5 children)

So what do people call each other now? Fuckwit/fuckedwit?

[–] Railcar8095@lemm.ee 12 points 7 months ago (1 children)

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?

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[–] SeaJ@lemm.ee 26 points 7 months ago

Republicans sure love small government /s

[–] Facebones@reddthat.com 24 points 7 months ago

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 .

[–] Silverseren@kbin.social 23 points 7 months ago

A new day, another reason to hate conservatives and their authoritarianism.

[–] bappity 19 points 7 months ago

pathetic I can't believe this is a real group of real human beings

[–] HawlSera@lemm.ee 18 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Well that sounds legal as fuck (no it doesn't)

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[–] Fleppensteijn@feddit.nl 12 points 7 months ago

There are no pronouns in symbols ♂, ♀

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