KU administrators announced an updated policy Tuesday to align with a Kansas Board of Regents directive requiring the removal of pronouns in email signatures that lays out an exact formula for KU employee email signoffs.
A note from KU Chancellor Douglas Girod, Chief Academic Officer Barbara Bichelmeyer and Executive Vice Chancellor for KU Medical Center Steve Stites says a number of employees have asked questions about the policy announced in July that some criticized as vague, unclear and harmful.
The original policy said state law prohibits university employee email signatures from including gender-identifying pronouns or references to gender ideology. The policy only mentioned employee email signatures and did not specify what “gender ideology” includes.
The new policy says all KU employees should use an email signature that follows “substantially the same format” as a provided example and can only contain this information:
• Name (academic credentials may be included after the name if desired)
• Title
• Office, Department, or Unit
• University of Kansas and/or specific campus, which can include Lawrence, Edwards, KU Medical Center (Kansas City, Salina or Wichita), and the Kansas Law Enforcement Training Center
• University Office Address (optional)
• Telephone Number (optional)
• Employee email address (optional)
• Office, Department, or Unit email address (optional)
• Office, Department, or Unit homepage URL (optional)
• University of Kansas homepage URL or KU Medical Center homepage URL (optional)
Ross Marchand, an attorney for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a national free speech nonprofit, said in July that KU has the right to regulate official speech, such as listing exactly what can be included in an email signature.
The original policy, however, had vaguely disallowed “gender ideology” in line with state budget provisions, which brought up “significant First Amendment concerns,” Marchand said.
KU’s updated policy also specifies that “Helvetica, Calibri, Aptos, Times New Roman, or Arial 10, 11, or 12-point font shall be used” for email signatures. “Fonts shall be in a single color – either black, dark gray, or dark blue.”
In addition, “Instructor contact information in course syllabi may only contain the information permitted in email signature blocks.”
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Cuyler Dunn (he/him), a contributor to The Lawrence Times since April 2022, is a student at the University of Kansas School of Journalism. He is a graduate of Lawrence High School where he was the editor-in-chief of the school’s newspaper, The Budget, and was named the 2022 Kansas High School Journalist of the Year. Read his complete bio here. Read more of his work for the Times here.
