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Pronouns and tribal affiliations are now forbidden in South Dakota public university employee emails (apnews.com)
submitted 5 months ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world
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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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[-] Garbanzo@lemmy.world 69 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

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 80 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

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 31 points 5 months ago

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

[-] RagingRobot@lemmy.world 24 points 5 months ago

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

[-] bobzilla@lemmy.world 13 points 5 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? 🙄

[-] maniel@sopuli.xyz 3 points 5 months ago

Perfectly readable, I'd bet there are some languages where "I'm" is implied

[-] Railcar8095@lemm.ee 1 points 5 months ago

I don't know any were the "I'm" is implied, but the "I" is, for example Spanish, because the verb has that info. For example, the present form of "to eat", "comer" I/yo *como You(singular)/tú *comes he/she/they(singular)él/ella/Ud. *come we/nosotros *comemos you(plural) vosotros *coméis they(plural) ellos/ellas/Uds. *comen

As with the verb alone you know the subject, you can safely ignore it and say, for instance "como" (eat) and have the same meaning as "yo como" (I eat).

[-] prole@sh.itjust.works 1 points 5 months ago

Not perfectly readable because you can't tell who they're referring to. Someone mentioned something in class, that's all we know.

[-] Alexstarfire@lemmy.world 1 points 5 months ago

Like English.

[-] Sir_Kevin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 5 months ago

This is the way.

[-] lolcatnip@reddthat.com 13 points 5 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.

[-] Ballistic_86@lemmy.world 4 points 5 months ago

Hello,

Thanks for reading my email. As a large language model….

Haha

this post was submitted on 25 May 2024
616 points (100.0% liked)

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