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.
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.
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.
I’ll take the bear in case you were wondering too.
Care to explain what an awful choice that is?
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.