Christian university criticized for firing employees who used pronouns in email signatures

Houghton Uni­ver­si­ty, a pri­vate Chris­t­ian uni­ver­si­ty in upstate New York, is fac­ing back­lash after alleged­ly fir­ing two employ­ees for using their pro­nouns in their work email sig­na­tures. Accord­ing to reports, res­i­den­tial hall direc­tors Rae­gan Zelaya and Shua Wilmot were told to remove their pro­nouns, but they refused and were fired.

Zelaya and Wilmot had used their pro­nouns because their first names are gen­der-neu­tral and they want­ed to avoid being mis­gen­dered in email cor­re­spon­dence. They say that their fir­ings were based on their Chris­t­ian val­ues and the uni­ver­si­ty’s attempt to appeal to more con­ser­v­a­tive polit­i­cal views.

In response, over 600 alum­ni from the uni­ver­si­ty have signed a peti­tion sup­port­ing Zelaya and Wilmot and dis­agree­ing with the uni­ver­si­ty’s deci­sion to close the diver­si­ty cen­ter. The alum­ni think that the uni­ver­si­ty’s actions are trans-exclu­sion­ary and may deter poten­tial stu­dents and their parents.

The uni­ver­si­ty denies that the fir­ings were only because of the use of pro­nouns in email sig­na­tures and claims that it has nev­er fired an employ­ee for this rea­son. How­ev­er, the uni­ver­si­ty has required employ­ees to remove “extra­ne­ous” infor­ma­tion from email sig­na­tures, includ­ing Scrip­ture quotes.

The con­tro­ver­sy high­lights the ongo­ing debate over pro­noun use and inclu­siv­i­ty on col­lege cam­pus­es. While some insti­tu­tions have embraced the use of pro­nouns and tak­en steps to cre­ate more inclu­sive envi­ron­ments, oth­ers have faced crit­i­cism for their lack of sup­port for mar­gin­al­ized com­mu­ni­ties. It remains to be seen how Houghton Uni­ver­si­ty will respond to the back­lash and whether it will take steps to address con­cerns about inclu­siv­i­ty and diver­si­ty on campus.