As a KU professor, I’ll take ‘she/her’ off my email. But I’m not happy about it | Opinion

They matter

I am a professor at the University of Kansas, and I will remove my pronouns (she/her) from the signature block on my KU email account, as Chancellor Douglas A. Girod directed. (July 24, 1A, “KU staff directed to remove pronouns from email signatures”)

Why do I include my pronouns in my signature block? I do it to tell my most marginalized students — my LGBTQIA and nonbinary students — that I recognize and support their existence. I am telling my students that I have thought about how making gender assumptions (sometimes resulting in wrong ones) might result in a student feeling embarrassed or alienated. This is the opposite of how I want any KU student to feel.

I also include my pronouns for my non-LGBTQIA students, to act as a role model for acceptance and tolerance of groups to which we might not belong. I show how we can easily include all Jayhawks, no matter whom they love or with which gender they identify.

I have taught thousands of KU students, many of whom are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer (or questioning) or nonbinary, and I likely have taught students who are asexual or intersex. I know these students, and they exist on campus. The Kansas Legislature cannot erase them. 

Until the July 31 deadline, I am still signing off as “Amii Castle (she/her).”

- Amii Castle, Lawrence

Curb appeal

As a longtime resident of Kansas City’s District 2, I have concluded we do not receive city services such as curb and sidewalk repair commensurate with property taxes paid compared with areas where those services are being provided. 

I have had a request for curb repair in for eight years, to no avail. The administrative aide to District 2 Councilman Wes Rogers told me the district has multiple times the number of curb repairs requested than city dollars allocated for that purpose. 

Perhaps district voters should elect a council member who will advocate more diligently on their behalf.

- James Van Winkle, Kansas City

George’s wisdom

Last month, Rutgers University professor Louis Masur said in a lecture about George Washington: “He does something that doesn’t even often get acknowledged or isn’t frequently mentioned. It’s very, very important. It’s perhaps more important than some of the battles fought and won. And it’s this: In 1777, he inoculates his army against smallpox. Inoculations were still controversial. Not everyone agreed. But Washington was a man of science. He realized that smallpox could be 10 times worse than the British, the Canadians and the Indians put together.”

So, 250 years ago we had leaders who understood the importance of scientific discovery and vaccinations, but today we have leaders who would rather rely on superstition and hearsay than on science, the discipline that has led to most of the progress in the world.

I just don’t get it.

- Fred Lambert, Kansas City

Church, state

Yvette Walker’s column about the IRS reversing the Johnson Amendment, allowing overt political speech in churches, struck a chord with me. (July 20, 18A, “Politics from the pulpit: Could IRS ruling give clergy too much power?”) 

My wife and I lived in Kansas City for more than 40 years until we moved to Florida in 2015. At that time, we started to attend a church near our home. As the 2016 election approached, the pastor endorsed one presidential candidate by name from the pulpit more than once. We were even given an attachment to the church bulletin on the major issues in the election and how they favored his endorsee. In addition, Tommy Tuberville gave a talk at the church. I did not attend the talk, but I learned later that he was a U.S. Senate candidate in neighboring Alabama. We found these actions so egregious that we stopped attending that church.

Based on how America’s Christian nationalist movement has become such a driving force in the political arena, it is apparent that our church was only the tip of the iceberg. Sadly, the reversal of the Johnson Amendment by the IRS will give a green light to further manipulation of the electorate.

- Douglas B. Bogart, Jacksonville, Florida

Priorities?

I cannot believe that so many people in the Kansas City area would vote for a new stadium for either of our professional teams. What are they thinking?

That money could go to better people who need help.

Someone’s got a loose wire somewhere.

- Dwight Heath, Lee’s Summit

No new roads

On June 23, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins rescinded the 2001 Roadless Rule, which has protected nearly 59 million acres of national forest from destruction.

This is a grave and misguided decision, for multiple reasons. First, Rollins cited a lack of fire control in these roadless stretches of forest, which she said leads to wildfires. However, according to the National Park Service, nearly 85% of wildfires in North America are caused by human activity. More roads in our national forests will lead to more wildfires caused by cigarettes, campfires, fireworks and more.

Second, the creation and maintenance of more roads in swaths of our national forests is economically unviable. According to the U.S. Forest Service, the agency receives only 20% of the annual maintenance funding it needs to maintain its road system. The Forest Service is simply unable to fund new roads in national forests.

The Roadless Rule protected our national forests for more than 20 years, yet Rollins threw it all away so the timber industry can destroy more of our beautiful country. The Roadless Rule must be reinstated.

- Olivia Svoboda, Lee’s Summit