Wheaton College, a flagship evangelical school in Wheaton, Illinois, recently updated its student and employee handbooks to restrict employees’ ability to designate personal pronouns and to elaborate on the school’s position on trans/nonbinary students and faculty.
“The College does not permit the statement of preferred personal pronouns by employees when conducting College business, when on a platform where they are publicly identified as College employees, and/or when using the College brand in print or digital media, except when employees are required to submit such pronouns when registering for a conference or for membership in a professional organization,” new language in the student handbook says.
What about students?
Updates to the handbook, which were approved in October and shared with employees in December and with students in January, clarify that the college does not endorse the statement of preferred pronouns by employees or students of Wheaton.
While the handbook exclusively recognizes the pronouns he/him/his and she/her/hers as reflective of the “created biological binary,” it does not appear to explicitly prohibit students from using or stating preferred pronouns, including they/them pronouns.
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EDITOR’S NOTE — Story written by Kathryn Post and originally published by Religion News Service. Used with permission.