Let's head to upstate New York,
where the attack on inclusivity is costing people jobs.
Well, at least two people who used to work at a Christian university there.
Yeah, and they were fired for using pronouns.
Mind you, neither of the two individuals are trans.
They simply have gender neutral names, and they thought it'd be professional and
kind of wanted to be inclusive.
Yeah, here's a picture of them from their New York Times interview.
Yes, on the left there, Reagan Zelaya, and on the right, Shua Wilmot.
And they say they're often misgendered due to their androgynous names.
Completely and totally understandable.
So despite the practical aspect of putting pronouns in their email subject line and
the inclusivity of it all, well, their bosses at Houghton University,
I believe I'm saying it correctly, they objected.
This for the Times.
Administrators at Houghton, which is affiliated with a conservative branch
of the Methodist Church, asked Ms Zelaya and Mr Wilmot, two resident hall advisors,
to remove the words she/her and he/him from their email signatures.
Saying they violated a new policy.
When they refused to do so,
both employees were fired just weeks before the end of the semester.
And even some insight into this Christian school and its principles,
it seems that they're not necessarily as inclusive as Christ would have been.
Houghton is affiliated with the Wesleyan Church, which teaches that
gender confusion and dysphoria are ultimately the biological, psychological,
social, and spiritual consequences of the human race's fallen condition.
It used adult gender nonconformity as a violation of the sanctity of human life.
Now, of course, the school tried to spin it in a way that they could save face when
it became very much public knowledge and went viral.
And they did this by trying to discredit their former employees' account of why
they were fired.
Michael Blankenship, a university spokesman,
said in a statement that Houghton has never terminated an employment
relationship based solely on the use of pronouns and staff email signatures.
Over the past years we've required anything extraneously removed
from email signatures, including Scripture quotes.
But of course, Miss Zelaya, she kind of had the receipts here.
Her termination letter, which she posted, says that she was fired not for
just removing her pronouns, but also for criticizing the administration's request
that she do so when she talked to the student paper.
So, all in all, as far as I'm concerned,
they were fired for having pronouns in their email signature line.
Now, the response from the university alum has been pretty loud.
They've signed a petition with almost over 600 signatures in protest,
really noting that the school has made this right wing move lately.
Including closing the Multicultural Student Center,
shuttering its environmental sustainability program, and
they've also discredited or shunned the on-campus LGBTQ club.
It really sounds like this university is going full MAGA, and
unfortunately they're losing good talent in the process.
>> I thought the right wing was against cancel culture.
But now you're going to fire people for using the correct pronouns, and
by the way, they're not even LGBTQ.
It wouldn't make it any better if they were, but you're firing people for
using pronouns, are we allowed to use any grammar?
What else can we get fired for, using commas?
>> [LAUGH] And these are guys, we're for freedom.
Are you?
We're against cancel culture.
Are you?
Okay, and when I first saw the headline I was like, somebody got fired for
not using pronouns.
I thought, right, and I'm like, that's outrageous.
I'm on the left but you shouldn't fire someone for
not listing all their pronouns in their email.
And it turns out, no, they got fired for using pronouns, for using correct grammar,
and for explaining to people that Shua is apparently a male name.
I had no idea.
They're like, how dare you!
But get a load of that last piece of irony.
So here's a guy saying, I'm a guy, and they go, fire.
What are we firing them for?
[LAUGH] It's insane!
It's insane.
But the right wing is like, no, that makes sense.
It looks like maybe they're LGBTQ adjacent.
Fire them just in case, they're using correct grammar.
[LAUGH] Okay, look, if you're on that side, God help you, cuz that really,
really, but yes, it was the administration that fired them.
People in power, and tons of people apparently think it makes sense.
It's beyond insane.
>> That is a funny detail that they both have sort of uncommon names where
they could literally just be saying, hey, I have an uncommon name.
Here's my pronouns.
That's such a funny detail.
But yeah, I don't know what the reasoning is.
It's like pronouns are a gateway to Satanic things, I don't know.
But I was reading in the article, too,
that that college is having not as many people are enrolling.
They're having some problems with that and I wonder why.
It doesn't seem like maybe the funnest place to go to school.
No, I'm not shocked.
>> RM, to be fair, my parents warned me about this.
So I remember telling my parents, hey, I'm gonna go out with her.
And they're like, [SOUND] did you just use a pronoun?
That's a gateway to being gay.
I was like, I didn't know that.
>> [LAUGH] >> Is it a gateway?
Is that what pronouns are?
How do you talk to the right wing?
How do you talk to them?
How do you make sense of this?
Are we speaking the same language?
Do you guys care about logic at all?
Do you not see that this is insane?
And Adrienne, my reading of the story was that their
president is on a war path to make them super conservative.
And so he's trying everything to make it outrageously radical right, and
that that was part of the reason, or the main reason why he did this.
>> It sounds right that they are trying to go for this big push, but
if people are unenrolling, and also people don't want to be affiliated, and
you have alum who generally are donors, passing on this.
It's like, how smart is this for you, for running business?
Get out of here.
It's completely and totally nonsensical as far as I'm concerned.
The only benefit here is those two individuals with those gender neutral or
androgynous names can now collect unemployment because they've been fired.
But as far as the student body goes, I really feel bad for them.
They might as well go to Liberty University.