Pronouns and Tribal Affiliations Now Banned in Employee Emails at Public University of South Dakota

A new South Dakota policy aimed at preventing the use of gender pronouns by public university faculty and staff in official correspondence also prevents Native American employees from indicating their tribal affiliations in a state with a long and violent history conflicts with the 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 professional email signature blocks. But both received written warnings from the university in March that it violated a policy adopted in December by the South Dakota Board of Regents.

“I was told 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 my behavior.’ If my tribal affiliation and pronouns were not removed after the 5 days, then the administrators would meet and decide whether I would be suspended (with or without pay) and/or immediately terminated.

The policy is presented by the board of directors as a simple branding and communication policy. This came just months after Republican Gov. Kristi Noem sent a letter to regents who attacked “liberal ideologies” on college campuses and called on the board of trustees to ban drag shows on campus and “remove all references to preferred pronouns in school materials “, among other things.

The board’s nine voting members were appointed by Noem, whose remarks in March accusing tribal leaders of profiting from illegal drug cartels and failing to properly care for children prompted most of the Dakota tribes to South to ban it from their lands.

South Dakota’s change comes amid a conservative quest to limit diversity, equity and inclusion. Initiatives are gaining momentum in state capitols and college boards across the country, with about a third of states taking action against it.

Policies targeting the use of gender pronouns have focused primarily on students in grades K–12, although some small religious colleges have also restricted pronoun use. Houghton University in western New York fired two dormitory directors last year after they refused to remove gender pronouns from their professional email signatures.

But some worry that South Dakota’s policy could mean such efforts spread to public colleges and universities.

“Frankly, this is the first time I have heard of a state university choosing to use branding standards to eliminate what had clearly become a practice of including pronouns and tribal affiliations in mailings electronics,” said Paulette Grandberry Russell, president of the National Association of the United States. Diversity agents in higher education. “But I’m not surprised, given the current climate we live in.”

Grandberry Russell called the conservative push limiting transgender rights and diversity, equity and inclusion efforts a “testing ground” to see if discriminatory laws will be tolerated.

“It’s a constant progression,” she said. “This comes in the form of communication and branding standards. Will this be the next frontier to sanitize the realities of our differences? “

The university professors’ advocacy group, the American Association of University Professors, is not aware of any other public university professors in the United States who are required to drop their preferred pronouns in official correspondence, said its spokesperson, Kelly Benjamin.

“Anecdotally, I will say that because I live in Florida and I’ve seen what’s happened with all the anti-wokeness and targeting of education here, I know that’s an integral part of a longer-term program,” Benjamin said.

A University of South Dakota spokeswoman declined to answer questions about whether its administrators or the university’s Faculty Senate were consulted before the regents adopted the policy, referring questions to the Board of Regents.

Shuree Mortenson, a spokeswoman for the regents, said the six universities under the Board of Regents were given the opportunity to review the policy, “but ultimately the Board of Regents made that decision.” She declined to say whether other professors at any of the other five schools had received warnings about not using gender pronouns, tribal affiliation or other identifiers, but defended the new policy as offering “consistency to safeguard the brand”.

Mortenson did not respond to questions about whether the inclusion of tribal affiliation in the official signing blocks of public universities had been considered by the regents before adopting it or whether the state’s tribal leaders had been consulted.

When the policy was announced to teachers in January, Little said he and Red Shirt-Shaw asked school administrators what impact the new policy would have on the inclusion of tribal affiliations.

“It was clear that they hadn’t considered that this would have an impact on Indigenous employees,” Little said.

The United States had long attempted to eradicate Native American communities and cultures through warfare, assimilation, and other means before recognizing the tribes’ inherent right to govern themselves. Native children, for example, were removed from their communities and forced to be sent to Native American boarding schools, which systematically mistreated students.

Red Shirt-Shaw said in social media posts that being told she couldn’t indicate her tribal affiliation in her signature felt like further erasure of Native South Dakotans.

“The ability to share my tribal affiliation as well as my gender pronouns indicates that I am a person who values ​​the lived experiences of others,” she said.

She and Little began listing their tribal affiliation and pronouns in the body of their emails, which the university currently allows.

The American Civil Liberties Union of South Dakota said it has heard from professors and students at the University of South Dakota who are concerned about the new policy. The ACLU is considering next steps to address this.

“Perhaps their intention was to remove the use of pronouns in electronic signatures, but as is often the case with any limitation or suppression of free speech, there are always unintended consequences,” he said. said Samantha Chapman, advocacy manager for the ACLU South Dakota. “There is also a component of double erasure here. There are a lot of queer Native people in South Dakota. ___

Associated Press reporter Felicia Fonseca in Flagstaff, Arizona, contributed to this report.