Employees at Christian university fired after using pronouns in email signatures

Saleen Martin, USA TODAY

May 23, 2023 at 5:13 AM·5 min read

Two employees at a Christian university in New York were fired after adding pronouns to their email signatures, the pair said in multiple videos and posts online.

Shua Wilmot and Raegan Zelaya, who were dorm directors at Houghton University in New York, used pronouns in their email signatures, refused to remove them and in April, received letters within an hour of each other saying they were fired.

Wilmot’s pronouns are he/him and Zelaya’s are she/her.

In letters, the school cited the pair’s “continued use of pronouns, and your email signature and violation of institutional policy after you had been asked to remove them.”

The university also said Zelaya made defamatory remarks about the school's diversity efforts and Wilmot threatened to publish an open letter to the General Superintendent of the Wesleyan Church about its views on gender.

The firing comes amid other gender identity and LGBTQ+ discussions happening around the country. Recently, there has been proposed legislation to ban drag shows or deem them adult entertainment. Companies such as Anheuser-Anheuser-Busch have also faced backlash for statements issued after anti-LGBTQ+ customers disapproved of a promotion featuring a transgender individual.

University's response

The university said in a statement Monday afternoon that it has never terminated employees based solely on the use of pronouns in staff email signatures.

"Over the past years, we've required anything extraneous be removed from email signatures, including Scripture quotes," the university said in its statement. "Houghton remains steadfastly committed to offering the Christian education that our students are promised."

University sent out a school-wide email about signature formatting prior to firing

The former employees said the school sent out an institution-wide email letting employees know how to format their signatures for branding purposes. The guidelines said to avoid including bible verses, links, odd fonts and encouraged employees to follow the university’s color scheme.

Zelaya changed her email signature to match the university’s fonts, colors, sizes and other formatting, along with her pronouns. She also included a link so people could schedule meetings with her.

“I was being fired because my email signature was not aligned with institutional policy and they specifically mentioned my pronouns but they don't mention my meeting link that I had at the bottom, which wasn't institutional policy either,” she said in the pair’s joint video. “It just shows the priority of what was bothering them about my email signature.”

Wilmot also adjusted his email signature to match the university’s branding style.

“In my role … I don't post my phone number,” he said in the joint video. “Where I would put my phone number, I instead put he/him."

What made them add pronouns to their email signatures?

Wilmot and Zelaya listed multiple reasons for using pronouns in their email signatures, including the fact that they both have gender-neutral names.

Wilmot's first name is Joshua but he goes by Shua. He said people who don’t know him misgender him sometimes. He said he’s not bothered by being misgendered, but he realizes when some people misgender others they feel uncomfortable.

“Let me avoid that professionally by just putting my pronouns in my email signature so you know that you're … writing to and writing from a man,” he said.

Zelaya, whose first name is Raegan, acknowledged that her name is used for both men and women. She also said it’s standard these days to have pronouns on name tags or in email signatures.

Zelaya recognized that she is privileged in that people address her as a woman when they meet her.

“For me, it felt like a way that I can show solidarity with the people who don't have that privilege,” she said. “It's a professional courtesy that I can offer and it's a way that I can show care and dignity for others."

Wilmot said including pronouns in email signatures also normalizes it and helps to empower others to do the same.

What now?

Zelaya told the university in January that she wouldn’t be returning. She already has a job lined up, she wrote in a recent Facebook post.

Wilmot had already been told in February that his employment wouldn’t be renewed. He had been looking forward to working there for another year though.

“I love the students here,” he said. “I love serving this community. I wanted a third year but I didn't comply with the policy.”

He had meetings with the dean of his department. He eventually took his pronouns out of his email signature but it didn’t sit well with him.

“I really thought about this and came back and said in the next conversation with my dean that when it comes to an issue of justice, inclusive justice or anything else, if you feel like you're asked to do something that's not just, don't do it,” he said. “If you have the privilege, if you feel safe enough to not comply, then don't comply.”