As a result of viewing the video posted @ https://youtu.be/-OBct3NBi3w,
I sent the following note via email to the University of Tennessee Alumni
Association:
To Whom It May Concern, UT Alumni Association:
Please remove my name and address (both postal and email) from all
your mailing lists until such time as the University of Tennessee hopefully
sees fit to abandon its current "politically correct" foolishness
with regard to gender-neutral pronouns. The English language has only one such
pronoun: "it" and the possessive declension "its."
I am now ashamed to be known as a UT alumna!
God created male and female--period. One's sex/gender is
determined by one's DNA. Cosmetic surgery, hormone treatments, and/or political
correctness cannot actually alter God's creation.
With much disappointment and disgust,
Cheryl Juanita Rutledge, B.M., magna cum laude, University of
Chattanooga, 1968
Cheryl J. Rutledge, Ph.D.
Musician, Retired Educator, Editor
Now, I can almost hear a linguist breathing down my back with a “gotcha”
correction: The 3rd-person plural pronouns “they/them/theirs” are
also gender-neutral.
But let’s more closely consider how the various 3rd-person
pronouns are customarily used. As for the 3rd-person singular
pronouns (as I frequently had to explain to my tertiary-level students in
Taiwan, 1986-2010), “he/him/his” designates only a male (whether human or animal);
“she/her/hers,” a female; “it,” an impersonal, inanimate thing. However, the 3rd-person
plural has broader usage: (1) a group consisting of two or more males-only; (2)
two or more females-only; (3) a mixed group, both male and female; or (4) a
group of impersonal, inanimate things, for which the possessive case has very
limited usage.
The Chattanooga Times Free
Press reported on Fri/Sept 4:
University of Tennessee
President Joe DiPietro informed UT Board of Trustees Friday that a
university news letter article advocating the use of "gender neutral"
pronouns such as "ze" for "he" and "she" for some
gay students will be removed from UT-Knoxville's Office for Diversity and
Inclusion's website. [http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/local/story/2015/sep/04/flap-over-gender-neutral-pronouns-ut-spurs-new-official-news-letter-policy-campus/323566/
]
That politically-correct
posting (diversity.utk.edu/2015/08/pronouns/) stirred up a hornet’s nest in the
State Legislature, which controls the purse strings. The gender-pronoun fiasco was
added to the agendas of the Senate Education Committee and Higher Education
Subcommittee for hearings already scheduled for Oct 14 and 15. TN Senate
Speaker Ron Ramsey (R-Blountville) urged the UT administrators to resolve the
issue quickly; otherwise, "the legislature will most certainly weigh in
when we return in January" [http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/local/story/2015/sep/04/senate-panel-review-gender-neutral-pronoun-po/323436/
].
So, was I a little too hasty in
shooting from the hip? Maybe, but I’m guessing that at least a few other alumni
also complained. After all, some alumni have a little more clout after receiving
our/their sheepskins. J
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