South Dakota Board of Regents clamp down on use of tribal affiliations in email signatures

The South Dakota Board of Regents told two university faculty members they could potentially put their jobs at risk if they continue to use them in their signatures.

One University of South Dakota employee, John Little, Standing Rock Dakota, posted on social media on March 13 that he received a written warning that his email signature “Standing Rock Dakota – he.him.his” violates Policy 1.7.6, which the regents adopted last December.

“In this written warning, it was stated that if I did not take out my tribal affiliation and pronouns to comply with (policy) 1.7.6, I would face suspension from USD (with or without pay) and then there would be a decision made about termination,” wrote Little, who serves as director of Native Recruitment on campus.

“I am saddened that the BOR continues the erasure of Native people in the state of South Dakota,” wrote Little. “This is an institution that I have sacrificed time and energy to support, while simultaneously they did not hesitate to provide me with a permanent written letter to my record and with the threat of termination for using my tribal affiliation and pronouns in my signature.”

Little and his wife, Megan Red Shirt-Shaw, Oglala Lakota and director of Native Student Services at the University of South Dakota, have long included their gender pronouns and tribal affiliations in their work email signature sections. But both received written warnings from the university in March that doing so violated their policy.

“I was told that I had 5 days to remove my tribal affiliation and pronouns,” said Little 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.”

Neither University of South Dakota President Sheila Gerstring nor her Media Relations office responded to ICT’s request for comment. It remains unclear, as well, whether the University Faculty Senator or administrations had been consulted before the policy went into effect.

In light of the appearance of whitewashing a person’s tribal identity on public university emails, President Cheryl Crazy Bull, Sicangu Lakota and president of the American Indian College Fund, said her organization fully supports the employees who reported the regents’ action on social media.

“Our role is to advocate … for inclusive and diverse practices and to be advocates for institutions, to have practices that honor the voice and the visibility of native people,” Crazy Bull told ICT. “So that’s the reason that we … became so concerned because it’s representative of a practice that we feel is not an inclusive practice and diminishes the safety and security of faculty and staff and student employees.”

Crazy Bull first expressed her support in her president’s blog on the College Fund website.

The South Dakota Board of Regents responded that Policy 1.7.6 pertains to communication and branding goals. A regents spokeswoman told ICT that consistent communication criteria “are necessary to safeguard our universities’ missions and interests.

“This policy is limited to communications by employees acting in their official capacity and using institutional communication channels,” added the spokeswoman, Shuree Mortenson.

Mortenson would not say whether faculty at any of the other five public universities within the system received similar warnings about not using gender pronouns or tribal affiliations. The other institutions are Black Hills State, Dakota State, Northern State, South Dakota School of Mines and South Dakota State.

Mortenson told The Associated Press that all six universities were given the opportunity to review the policy, “but ultimately, the Board of Regents made this decision.”

It’s unclear whether tribal leaders were consulted before regents announced the policy last January. Little said he and Red Shirt-Shaw got no answers when they asked administrators about how the new policy covers inclusiveness at that time.

“It was clear that they had not considered that this would impact Native employees,” Little told The Associated Press.

Red Shirt-Shaw said in social media posts that being told not to use her tribal affiliation as part of her signature felt like further erasure of Native people in South Dakota, The Associated Press reported.

“The ability to share my tribal affiliation as well as gender pronouns signals that I am a person who values the lived experiences of others,” said Red Shirt-Shaw.

At last report, Little and Red Shirt-Shaw continue to insert their tribal affiliations and pronouns within the body of his emails to avoid the signature limitation.

A University of South Dakota alumna, Crazy Bull told ICT that public institutions must follow the regents’ policies.

“But I’m disappointed … that’s happening at two institutions that I feel have made great strides to create visibility and safe space for native students and have put a lot of resources into bringing the native population in the state of South Dakota onto their campuses,” added Crazy Bull. “So that’s a real disappointment.”

The College Fund provides an Indigenous Higher Education Equity Initiative that includes creating visibility and healthier learning environments for Native Americans in higher education.

The U.S. had long tried to eradicate Native American communities and cultures through warfare, assimilation and other means before recognizing tribes’ inherent right to govern themselves. Indigenous children, for example, were taken from their communities and forced into Native American boarding schools, which systematically abused students.

The regents’ action is seemingly part of a broader dismantling of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion offices on college campuses, as several state legislatures in conservative states have passed legislation requiring public campuses to change DEI office names to something more generic, such as “Opportunity Centers” instead.

As the conservative movement to limit diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives gain momentum in state capitals and college governing boards across the nation, about one-third of the states are taking some sort of action against it, according to The Associated Press.

The American Association of University Professors, a college faculty advocacy group, is unaware whether other faculty at a public university in the United States are required to drop their preferred pronouns in official correspondence, said Spokesman Kelly Benjamin.

“Anecdotally I’ll say, because I live in Florida and have seen what’s happened with all the anti-wokeness and targeting of education here, I know this is part and parcel to a longer-term agenda,” Benjamin said.

The new regents policy appeared only a few months after South Dakota 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.

While conservative school board policies eliminating the use of gender pronouns have occurred mainly in kindergarten-through-12 grade districts, some small religious colleges also restrict pronoun use.

Houghton University in western New York fired two dorm directors last year after they refused to remove gender pronouns from their work email signatures.

So some college leaders fear that the South Dakota regents’ policy could chip away at public colleges.

“Quite frankly, this is the first I’ve heard of a state university choosing to use branding standards to eliminate what obviously had become a practice of including pronouns and tribal affiliations to emails,” said Paulette Grandberry Russell, president of the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education. “But I’m not surprised, given the current climate we’re in.”

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

“It is a steady progression,” she said. “This comes in the form of communications and branding standards. Is that going to be the next frontier in sanitizing the realities of our differences?”

Conservative groups argue that DEI initiatives promote racial or gender identity over individual merit – often code for whitewashing minority groups and/or LGBTQ+ groups.

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

“Maybe their intent was to suppress pronoun usage in email signatures, but as is often the case with any limitation or suppression of free speech, there’s always unintended consequences,” said Samantha Chapman, an advocacy manager for the ACLU South Dakota. “There is also a component here of double erasure. There are plenty of queer Indigenous folks in South Dakota.”