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.

  • molave
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    22 days ago

    This measure in a vacuum is not inherently bad, though it is authoritarian and, yes, contrary to a Republican’s (theoretical) advocacy to small government. Rwanda also removed legal distinctions between Tutsi and Hutu, but it was done after and because of the genocide.

    • prole@sh.itjust.works
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      22 days ago

      What’s the point of comments like this? Truly… Are we in a vacuum? No? Then why even continue with whatever inane bullshit that came next?

      Yeah dude perfect analogy. These people are doing this to promote solidarity and show that we’re all the same and shouldn’t be murdering each other. Totally comparable situation.

      • molave
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        21 days ago

        I get that using and promoting labels for your group promote solidarity. It can also cause division simply because when you call yourself “X”, it’s inevitable that people would form opinions and at worst prejudices on what is “not X”.

        My point? Similar policies may result in different outcomes.