PJ Sills
Staff Reporter
Here at Pacific Lutheran University (PLU), there are a great deal of students who do not identify as cis-het (identify with sex assigned at birth and/or heterosexual). Many students have thrived since exploring and discovering their identity. This school is supposed to be an environment where these students can feel welcomed and loved.
Instead, there have been countless students misgendered and deadnamed. Deadnaming is when someone calls a trans person by the name they went by before transitioning or were assigned at birth. Both professors and students have struggled not to deadname and misgender, and while this is not a new issue, there has been an increasing prevalence of it during the current semester.
This led third year student RJ Uhl and second year student Grayson Semour to set up an appointment with Dean and Title IX Deputy Eva Frey to discuss emotional impact and solutions.
“Two big points stood out. One was instead of using students’ names, using their student ID numbers for role call, or just letting students introduce themselves. Another thing we talked about was updating the banner system, talking to IT and finding different ways to update it to where your dead name will not show up on the class roster,” Uhl said.
Professors underwent mandatory training at the beginning of the year where they were instructed to let students introduce themselves to avoid any confusion, yet this has not been carried out in many classrooms.
Every single class roster includes a spot for a student’s legal name, as well as their chosen name, despite the fact that there is no reason or right for a professor to know a student’s dead name. Being addressed by a dead name can have devastating effects on mental health and comfort in a classroom setting.
President Allan Belton was emailed about his opinions and ideas to fix this problem and responded to The Mast. “We are going to explore whether it’s possible within the system to hide the column [on class rosters] that indicates legal names, where appropriate.” In regards to solutions for trans students having their identity misunderstood and disrespected, Belton said, “If a student is experiencing a community member calling them outside of their name and/or using incorrect pronouns, they are encouraged to reach out.”
In terms of disciplinary action, at this moment according to several members of administration, including Belton, there is no system in place. It is up to the student whose physical and emotional safety is being compromised to speak up.
The website RateMyProfessor and end-of-semester course evaluations are extremely important (yet overlooked) for students who experience professors that do not respect their identity and thus their humanity. In the past, there have been professors who have been fired due to things that came up in their evaluation forms. There is also the online BIRT form (plu.edu/birt/), where you can report instances in detail about something that happened involving a community member. You can include if you would like to see any further action regarding the incident you write about.
Along with no accountability for faculty, there are also glaring issues within the most sensitive areas of student identity. More specifically, registrar Kelly Poth, whose phone call with Uhl was the catalyst for him and Semour to meet with the dean. Poth was reached out to by The Mast and did not return a comment
“I asked her why my deadname was showing up on the class roster when it had been changed on Banner, and she was very dismissive. She did not offer any solutions, nor did she work with me to do so. It was unprofessional and she was extremely rude. She said the Banner system was put in a long time ago and there was nothing we could do. She said that professors need to know your legal name so they can put it on your academic roster” Uhl said regarding Poth.
This kind of behavior is invalidating to a large community within the university, and with no consequences, this school’s performative wokeism will remain at large.
“If they’re not going to [respect students’ identities] because they’re a bigot, make them do it because their job is on the line,” Uhl said.
The dean was responsive to their meeting with RJ and Grayson and listened to how improvements could be made, but at the same time, Uhl mentioned that “they talked to us like we were kids. They didn’t listen to some of our points, and the power dynamic felt kind of odd at times. We felt like we had to be super professional to be taken seriously while they joked around and were really casual.”
This is an issue that should be taken seriously before it is rampantly ruining students’ experiences to the point that students have to take it upon themselves to solve the problem. There is only so much patience that can be surrendered.
It is simply disappointing to hear the president of our school who has a non-binary child, who is supposed to protect student interests and health say “education is never a one-and-done process—it takes repetition, reiteration, and practice.” How many times must a student’s dysphoric part of their self be repeated and reiterated before there can be practices in place that protect students?
