The Catholic Villanova University is defending guidance it released this month that pushes faculty and staff to promote “gender inclusivity” and maintain a policy of preferred pronouns in the classroom.
The “Gender Inclusive Practices Guide” was released this month and was developed by the university’s Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion along with its gender and women’s studies department. The guidelines offer suggestions to faculty and staff for “being gender inclusive in … work spaces, laboratories, and classrooms — especially for those who identify within transgender, nonbinary, gender nonconforming, and/or gender questioning communities.”
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Among the recommendations is for university faculty and staff to “normalize an inclusive approach to gender” by avoiding “gender binary language like ‘ladies and gentlemen.’
“It’s also helpful to model using people’s pronouns and to state your own pronouns when you introduce yourself, including in your syllabus and email signature,” the guide continues.
Faculty and staff are also encouraged to include a “gender inclusion statement” in their class materials that “provides students with a definition of gender inclusivity and guidance on the use of pronouns and non-sexist language in the classroom.”
“If possible, take the time to explain your reasons for incorporating gender-inclusive strategies into your teaching,” the guidance adds.
The Catholic Church, with which Villanova University is affiliated, teaches that gender and biological sex are immutable and inseparable characteristics. The head of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis, has asserted that “biological sex and the sociocultural role of sex [gender] can be distinguished but not separated” and that “it is one thing to be understanding of human weakness and the complexities of life and another to accept ideologies that attempt to sunder what are inseparable aspects of reality.”
In a statement to the Washington Examiner, Villanova spokesman Jonathan Gust defended the guidelines, saying, “Villanova upholds and maintains the Catholic Church’s teaching that all people are accepted with respect, compassion and sensitivity.”
“As part of our Augustinian values of Veritas, Unitas, Caritas — Truth, Unity and Love — Villanova seeks to be a welcoming and inclusive community that respects members of all backgrounds and faiths,” Gust said. “Calling someone by their name and pronouns is a show of respect for them as a person and fellow Villanovan.”
Villanova is located within the geographic jurisdiction of the Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia, but a spokesman for the archdiocese told the Washington Examiner that the university is independent and separate from the administrative purview of the archdiocese.
Bishop Thomas Daly, the chairman of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Committee on Catholic Education, criticized the state of Catholic schools in an interview with the Washington Examiner last month, saying, “We have Catholic schools, Catholic bishops, religious orders, and institutions within the church who have, quite frankly, gone ‘woke.'”
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“There’s certain religious orders [and] universities in this country that have caused great harm because they have confused students,” Daly said. “If you don’t watch out, the secular will overcome the sacred and cause great harm because there’s still enough trappings of that which looks religious to entice most people.”
