The charge is being led by the school’s Center for Diversity and Inclusion. Who could have guessed?
The College Fix reports:
American University official says it plans to mandate use of preferred pronounsAmerican University’s Center for Diversity and Inclusion would like to require faculty to address students by their “chosen name and pronouns,” so as to make transgender, genderqueer and gender non-conforming students feel welcome.A visiting scholar who just left AU’s Department of Management is so concerned about the proposal that he’s trying to nix it from the top.Adam Kissel, who formerly served in the Trump administration’s Department of Education, learned about the proposal after asking the center about a “pronoun guide” on the private university’s website (below).In a Wednesday letter to President Sylvia Burwell that he shared with The College Fix, Kissel expressed concerns about mandatory compliance with the pronoun guide.“Not only would such a policy be exclusive with respect to people who have moral views that differ from those of the official morality of AU and its Center for Diversity & Inclusion, and not only would such a policy enforce a set of alleged facts that are deeply contested in American society and among scholars,” he wrote, but this policy would also “violate AU’s promises of academic freedom and free speech.”The university does not have an explicit policy of punishing community members who use pronouns incorrectly, but they can be investigated for failure to respect gender identity through its bias reporting system.Two American University officials, Associate Dean of Students Michelle Espinosa and Assistant Dean of Students Jaris Williams, told The Fix to inquire about the recent developments with Dean of Students Jeffrey Brown. He did not respond to requests for comment via phone or email.
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