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.

  • Todd Bonzalez@lemm.ee
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    6 months ago

    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.

    • enkers
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      6 months ago

      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.