According to a report, two employees at a private Christian university in upstate New York were fired for using their pronouns in work emails.
The New York Times(NYTNYT) reported that Houghton University administrators requested residence hall directors Raegan Zelaya, 27, and Shua Wilmot, 29, to remove the words “she/her” and “he/him” from their school-related email accounts.
A violation of institutional policy: University
Zelaya and Wilmot were dismissed from their duties “effective immediately” after rejecting to remove their pronouns from the email signature. Zelaya shared a letter from the university dated April 19 stating that she was “in violation of institutional policy.”
She was prohibited from having an on-campus presence, and she was only permitted to leave her apartment to receive her mail or meals from the university’s dining hall.
Zelaya and Wilmot explained that they included their pronouns because their initial names are gender-neutral and they have previously been misgendered in comparable communications.
“I have been mistaken for a woman over email,” Wilmot said in the video. “When someone misgenders me, it sometimes makes them uncomfortable so let me avoid that professionally by putting my pronouns in my signature so you know that you’re writing to a man.”
“Reagan is also a dual-gender name,” Zelaya added. “I know many men and women who have the name Raegan. From a practical point is helpful to say what my pronouns are. It’s a pretty standard industry practice.”
Termination of Zelaya: Allegations of defamation and dismissal based on Christian views
Zelaya’s termination letter also stated that she was relieved for making “defamatory statements” in the university student newspaper when asked for feedback on the administration’s closure of the Mosaic Multicultural Center — an on-campus diversity center.
“I responded with my opinion, thoughts, and prospectives,” she said in a Youtube video. “I didn’t think I was saying anything that I hadn’t already communicated with my superiors,” revealing she had meetings with high-ranking administrators at the university about her views on inclusiveness on campus.
Zelaya feels she was fired because of her Christian views, but she claims the school is also motivated by a desire to pander to more conservative political ideals.
“We live in a very divided world right now where everything is this or that, right or left, conservative or liberal, Republican or Democrat,” Zelaya told the outlet. “As Christians, I think we’ve gotten so caught up in these ideas of, ‘This is what I should be advocating for or upset about,’ that we forget to actually care for people.”
A Houghton spokesman stated that the university “has never terminated an employment relationship solely based on the use of pronouns in staff email signatures,” and that the school has “required” employees to delete “extraneous” information from email signatures — including Scripture quotes, the outlet reported.
Wesleyan Church is linked with Houghton University
In response to the alumni letter protesting the administration’s decision to fire Zelaya and Wilmot, close the diversity center, and affiliate with Wesleyan Church, University President Wayne Lewis Jr. stated that the school “unapologetically privileges an orthodox Christian worldview, rooted in the Wesleyan theological tradition.”
Lewis Jr. further mentioned that university employees were obliged to reconfirm their “understanding of and agreement to these commitments” at the beginning of each school year.
He cited that the closure of the Mosaic Multicultural Center was due to “its current form and function no longer achieving the university’s aims.”
The university has been contacted for comment
In the aftermath of the terminations, almost 600 alumni from the small Christian university signed a petition supporting the couple and opposing the university’s decision to close the diversity center.
“I think it boils down to: They want to be trans-exclusive and they want to communicate that to potential students and the parents of potential students,” Wilmot told the outlet.