Mediaboss Marketing

COTTLEVILLE Amid our remarkably divided times, four school board candidates in the Francis Howell School District found a bit of common ground during a debate on Tuesday.

This election is going to be about teachers, said Steven Blair, a Methodist pastor and father of two.

He and Carolie Owens, a retired music teacher, are endorsed by the local affiliate of the National Education Association.

Blair and Owens didnt agree much with their two opponents during the debate, led by student journalists in the districts high schools. Adriana Kuhn, who owns a marketing company, and Sam Young, a retired U.S. Navy officer, are endorsed by the Francis Howell Families activist group, which has helped push culture wars in the district. Kuhn has brought partisan politics to the race, touting her support by the Republican Central Committee.

But all four candidates endorsed the idea that the election is about teachers increasing teacher pay and keeping them in the district, long one of the highest-ranked districts in Missouri.

How to get there? Thats another matter.

The debate, with pointed questions from the students, was a microcosm of the divisive battles that have embroiled school boards across the nation. In the past few months, the Francis Howell district has been divided by race, as the board rescinded an anti-racism resolution and then tried to cancel Black literature classes and Black history classes. The classes were reinstated, but not until a student-led walkout helped bring attention to the issue. Still, the board voted to erase the part of the curriculum dealing with social justice and political activism in Black history.

That action was a reminder that political activism and history cannot be divided.

Every single one of us is connected to political activism, Blair reminded his fellow candidates during the debate.

Young and Kuhn supported the gutting of Black history and Black literature classes. They talked about how bad masks were in the COVID-19 pandemic, and how its important for school boards to delve into the sorts of debates that decide who uses which bathrooms.

Some people thought it was a good thing that students walked out of school, Young said. I disagree with that.

The four candidates are battling for two seats on the school board. The election is unlikely to end the culture wars, as the winners will replace two board members who were dissenting votes in the curriculum discussions. One way or another, there will still be a culture war majority on the Francis Howell School Board after the April 2 election. Thats a bad thing if the goal is to stop teachers from fleeing, Owens and Blair said.

There are teachers who are leaving Francis Howell for other school districts, Blair said. Ive talked to the teachers. What they want more than anything else is to stop being attacked by the school board.

Nationally, there are signs that voters are tiring of attempts to turn school board votes into partisan elections. After a few prominent post-pandemic victories, including in St. Charles County and the Rockwood School District in St. Louis County, voters have generally moved away from more divisive candidates. In November, for instance, voters in several states Pennsylvania, Kansas, Virginia and Iowa rejected candidates who wanted to focus on buzz phrases like CRT and DEI.

In Francis Howell, theres at least agreement that the school board should be focused on retaining teachers. But ideas on how to do so give voters a clear choice between the two slates of candidates.

Were running against the NEA, Kuhn said of herself and Young.

Owens offered a retort: If youre running against the NEA, youre running against teachers.

Francis Howell North High School senior Lauren Chance talks with the media, along with her schoolmates, after the group led a walkout of students on Thursday, Jan. 18, 2024. The walkout was done to protest the Francis Howell School Board's changes to the district's classes on Black History and Black Literature and the board's earlier action to remove a previously passed resolution against racism and discrimination.

Get local news delivered to your inbox!

Read the original post:
Messenger: Is Francis Howell school board election about teachers or culture wars? - St. Louis Post-Dispatch

The bill banning rainbow flags from public buildings in Florida sounded like a sure bet.

State Rep. David Borrero (R), the legislations sponsor, argued that it was needed to prevent schoolchildren from being subliminally indoctrinated. That rationale echoed other measures championed by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) as part of his war on woke.

But instead of sailing through the Republican-dominated legislature, the DeSantis-backed bill died a quick legislative death, making it only as far as one subcommittee.

It wasnt the only culture war proposal from conservative lawmakers to end up in the bill graveyard during the session that ended Friday. One rejected bill would have banned the removal of Confederate monuments. Another would have required transgender people to use their sex assigned at birth on driver's licenses something the state Department of Motor Vehicles is already mandating. A third proposed forbidding local and state government officials from using transgender peoples pronouns.

Some of those ideas have come up in the past and may surface again next year. But the fact that the bills failed, even with public support from DeSantis, marks a change from the days when the GOP supermajority in Tallahassee passed nearly everything the governor asked for.

Florida has firmly cemented itself in recent years as ground zero for the nations culture wars. The Sunshine State is the birthplace of conservative parental rights group Moms for Liberty, the original law restricting LGBTQ+ discussion in classrooms, one of the strictest abortion laws in the country and legislation that has led to the banning of more books than in any other state in America.

But the pushback is growing.

Parents and others have organized and protested schoolbook bans. Abortion rights advocates gathered enough signatures to put the issue on the ballot in Florida in November. A bill that would have established fetal personhood stalled before it could reach a full vote.

Judges are also canceling some of DeSantiss marquee laws, including the Stop Woke Act. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit ruled Monday that the law exceeds the bounds of the Constitutions First Amendment right to freedom of speech and expression.

Even the governor recently admitted the state might have gone too far in trying to remove certain books from school shelves, suggesting laws on book challenges should be tweaked to prevent bad actors from having too much influence.

Democrats and other DeSantis critics say the laws that the governor has pushed will continue to shape public life in Florida for years to come, and they dont expect the Republican supermajority in the state House to suddenly abandon conservative causes. But they do sense a shift.

When his presidential race ended, I think that a lot of his influence and power died at the same time, said state Sen. Shevrin Jones, a South Florida Democrat. And I think that people in Florida and across the country, including Republicans, are starting to see that the culture wars are getting us nowhere.

In the past year, the Florida GOP has been rocked by a sex scandal involving the party chairman and infighting between DeSantis and Trump supporters.

GOP voter registration numbers continued to surpass Democrats, but the party lost two local races they were expected to win: the mayors office in Jacksonville, and a closely contested special election to replace a Republican state representative near Orlando.

The legislative seat flipped blue in January when Democrat Tom Keen defeated his Republican rival, a conservative school board member who raised more than twice as much money and promised to fight the woke agenda. Keen campaigned on lowering property insurance rates and protecting access to abortion.

DeSantis, who was largely absent from the state while he campaigned for the GOP presidential nomination, has urged lawmakers to stay the course. But his doomed presidential bid changed political calculations in and out of the state.

Many lawmakers credit Republican Senate President Kathleen Passidomo for some of the shift. Passidomo stopped several culture war bills from progressing in the Senate, including one that would have punished local officials who oversaw the removal of Confederate monuments.

DeSantis strongly supported the bill, arguing that it is problematic to apply a hyper-woke 21st-century test to historical figures.

Its totally appropriate for the legislature to say, You know what? Were going to stop this madness, DeSantis said at a news conference in Jacksonville in February, two months after the city pulled down a controversial Jim Crow-era monument called Women of the Southland.

Among the public speakers who supported the monuments bill at a Senate hearing was a man who said he wanted to protect Confederate statues to push White culture, white supremacy.

Democrats walked out of the hearing, while Republicans on the committee some of whom visibly recoiled at the white-supremacy remarks approved the bill. But Passidomo refused to bring it to the full Senate.

I'm not going to bring a bill to the floor that is so abhorrent to everybody, she said.

The Senate president also rejected most of the 10 bill priorities the state Republican Party outlined in a legislative wish list, saying the party didnt dictate what lawmakers should do.

DeSantis did not respond to a request for comment but said Friday at an end-of-session news conference that he was satisfied with what was passed by the legislature this year. Sponsors of the bills protecting monuments and outlawing rainbow flags also did not respond to requests for comment.

DeSantis did see some of his priorities pass. The legislature approved a law that the governor pushed prohibiting sleeping in public. And a ban on woke meat food products cultivated in a lab from animal cells easily got the green light from Republican lawmakers.

You need meat, okay? Like, were going to have fake meat? That doesnt work, he said at a news conference in February, rejecting arguments that banning it could stifle innovation.

Even DeSantiss budget requests faced pushback this year. The governor wanted an additional $5 million for his controversial migrant relocation program, but lawmakers only agreed to current spending levels. He also tried to add $57 million toward the recently reestablished Florida State Guard. Legislators signed off on a lower amount $18.5 million, and added a requirement for detailed spending reports from the agency.

What we saw this session was that bills that were either DeSantis ideas or retreads from last year really didnt get anywhere, said the state Houses minority leader, Fentrice Driskell. I think in large part its because DeSantis has lost steam. He lost on the national stage, and that emboldened the Republicans in the legislature to feel like they dont have to go along to get along with this guy anymore.

Parents in Miami-Dade County founded Moms for Libros last year as an antidote to Moms for Liberty, the Florida-based group promoted by DeSantis.

The founders of Moms for Libros Moms for Books say they got together to battle what they see as censorship in schools. Their ranks have grown in the past year, and they say their messages promoted in English, Spanish and Haitian Creole are resonating even with parents who initially supported DeSantiss education bills.

A lot of the conservative Cuban American parents I talk to say they thought it was just about keeping sex out of schools, said Vanessa Brito, co-founder of Moms For Libros. But when they learn what was really happening, like when they heard that a book about Celia Cruz was taken off the shelves, they are very concerned. Having the government come in and tell you that your kids cant have a book about Celia Cruz, that caused an uproar.

The book, Celia Cruz, Queen of Salsa, was temporarily removed from Duval County schools last year.

Brito said she talks to parents who are starting to object to the states growing list of rules and laws pertaining to education. In one incident that made international headlines, a Miami-area school required students to get parental permission to attend an extracurricular activity that included a talk by Florida historian Marvin Dunn, a Black scholar who has chronicled racist incidents in state history.

Republican, Democrat, independent, people just dont want books banned in our country. So it was just a collection of bad ideas that imploded on DeSantis, Dunn said. And now hes actively trying to back off of these policies that have caused so much confusion in the state and in the education system at all levels.

School officials said they were only following the new laws; DeSantis said they were being absurd and told them to knock it off.

The vagueness of the laws have led to full-blown censorship, and people now see that happening in real time, said Brito, who voted for DeSantis the first time he ran for governor in 2018. And from what Ive seen, theyre getting tired of woke this, woke that.

The governor has also seen his anti-woke agenda challenged in court. In addition to the recent ruling on the Stop Woke Act, federal judges have halted enforcement of a law DeSantis signed last year that targeted drag shows. A different court declared that a rule from the state health agency that would ban Medicaid payments for gender-affirming care is unconstitutional.

DeSantis did nonetheless score a legal victory when a federal appeals panel sided with him over the Walt Disney Co. in January in regards to the state takeover of the entertainment giants special taxing district. But even with that win, the consequences of the feud have been far reaching, with the company canceling plans to build a $1 billion employee campus in Florida.

Since his return from the campaign trail, DeSantis has been flying around the state holding news conferences several times a week. Hes talked about congressional term limits, making retail theft a felony and cracking down on rowdy spring breakers. Hes also sent more state law enforcement officers to the southern border in Texas and ordered the release of grand jury records from the Jeffrey Epstein case.

Political analyst Susan MacManus said voters in Florida are paying more attention to pocketbook issues than culture war laws, and state lawmakers most of whom are up for reelection this year need to pay attention. Republicans who may have been following DeSantiss lead on laws that target the LGBTQ+ community and Black history are hearing different concerns when they return to their districts.

Theres a concern Im hearing more and more from people, and in the media, that Florida is becoming too expensive, said MacManus, professor emeritus at the University of South Florida. Were seeing stories on the nightly news about people moving out of the state because the cost of living is too high here.

With homeowners and auto insurance costs that are more than triple that of other states, MacManus said Republican and Democratic voters have more pressing concerns than culture wars.

These legislators are coming back and, and their families and friends are saying they should be doing something that is going help us, MacManus said. The woke things may be interesting to some Republicans, but there are bigger issues.

Mike Fasano, a lifelong Republican who served in the House and Senate for 18 years and is now the Pasco County tax collector, said most culture war issues are not on the minds of families struggling to pay rising property and auto insurance costs.

I dont think families, whether theyre Republican or Democratic or independent, are sitting at the breakfast table talking about which books should be banned, Fasano said. Theyre talking about how theyre going to pay their rent or mortgage and the electric bill and the premium on their homeowners insurance.

Continued here:
DeSantis faces pushback in Florida as voters tire of war on woke - The Washington Post

Megan Cook, Russ Nelson and Ann Groves Lloyd are mayors of small towns in Maryland, Montana and Wisconsin.

Nelson has been the mayor of Belgrade, Montana, for 20 years.

Karen Rose has been with Sarasota County Schools in Florida for more than three decades serving as a special education teacher, middle school principal and since 2020 on the local school board.

Over their tenures, the quartet and local officials across the country have seen the exponential growth of social media and its impacts on civil discourse, as well as the increasing intersections between divisive national politics and whats happening at the community level.

Rose, who became chair of the Sarasota County School Board in November, said shes worked for and with multiple superintendents and times have definitely changed.

We took great pride in no one knowing our political affiliation. We kept each other in check. It was a matter of pride, Rose said.

Now, Florida conservatives (including Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis) and progressives (including some outspoken teacher unions and Democratic-leaning school boards) clash locally over COVID and vaccine rules, controversial books in libraries, the states so-called Dont Say Gay law restricting elementary school teachers from talking to young students about gender identity and sexual orientation and how to teach Americas racial history.

Rose said she saw some previous superintendents let politics take away from the focus on academic achievement.

Cultural wars were being let in and taking hold, she said.

Rose, a Republican, said the current superintendent, Terry Connor, (who was hired last year) has shown a focus on academic achievement and data-driven solutions.

But thats not stopping the politics at board meetings, she said.

There is clearly an organized agenda that is political in the boardroom during public comment, Rose said. Its very organized.

Rose said Democratic advocates will speak during the comment period, noting a recent hearing where 67 people spoke, with only three focused on academics.

Some of the recent comments have been geared toward Bridget Ziegler, who has served on the Sarasota school board since 2014 and was a co-founder of the lightning rod conservative education group Moms for Liberty, which has become a GOP political force.

Liberal activists and other critics have called for Ziegler to resign her post amid a police investigation of her husband, former Florida Republican Party Chairman Christian Ziegler, over an alleged sexual encounter with his wife and another woman. Christian Ziegler could face video voyeurism charges for allegedly videotaping the encounter. Bridget Ziegler has never faced any legal allegations in the episode. She did not respond to an interview request.

Social media and national political tensions have changed the landscape of local politics and discourse at school boards, city councils and other bodies.

Rose saidpolitical advocates, as well as some media outlets, have focused on Florida controversies, including debates over controversial and mature content at libraries. Those debates, along with fights over drag shows at libraries, other public venues and local businesses, have been happening across the country.

They continue to talk about book banning. This board has not banned one single book, she said.

Conservative and progressive advocates increasingly view local councils and school boards as venues to mobilize supporters and address issues of concern.

Carlos Guillermo Smith, senior policy adviser for Equality Florida (an LGBTQ rights group), said the group has a long history of mobilizing parents and community members to attend school board and council meetings when issues of concern arise.

We have also had a regular presence at the Sarasota school board meetings, especially in the wake of recent Moms For Liberty/Ziegler scandals, he said.

Anti-war and pro-Palestinian activists have pushed liberal jurisdictions, including San Francisco, to approve resolutions condemning Israels war in Gaza after the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks and calling for a ceasefire. Other progressives advocated for spending cuts and shifting money away from police after the death of George Floyd in 2020.

Among conservatives, Mark Lee Dickson, a Christian pastor and anti-abortion rights advocate from Texas, has gotten 65 cities and seven counties in Texas, Nebraska, New Mexico and other states to pass Sanctuary Cities for the Unborn Initiatives. The measures aim to signal communities oppositionto abortion rights and resistance to having abortion clinics in their jurisdictions.

Florida has seen local fights over school curriculums, controversial books, drag shows at public venues, COVID rules, LGBTQ rights and what teachers should can teach about sexual orientation and gender identity in classrooms.

Frustrations with and more cautious approaches related to social media are common refrains from local officials wary of viral controversies and local rumor mills.

In small-town Montana, where Belgrade has a population approaching 13,000 people, Nelson avoids social media and its penchant for unpleasant and contentious discourse.

Im not on Facebook. Im not on social media, said Nelson, who has been in office since 2003 and won reelection in November for a final term before his expected retirement. You can call me, or if you need me, you can text me. Thats my technology.

The more contentious nature of local politics whether it comes from social media criticism or its mirroring of national fights over hot-button issues or former President Donald Trump also can discourage potential candidates for local office and can lead to shorter tenures for some city, county and school district staff, Nelson said.

Good people see how challenging it is and dont enter the game, he said.

Ann Groves Lloyd is the mayor of Lodi, Wisconsin, a town of just over 3,200 residents near Madison. Groves Lloyd describes herself as a progressive feminist and small-town mayor on her social media profile on X (formerly Twitter).

The progressive mayor is a vehement critic of former President Trump, is no fan of U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., and is not sure she can find compromise or common ground with conservative adherents of alt-right media such as Alex Jones or those getting worked up about drag shows.

Groves Lloyd also said she saw already rough civil discourse get even rougher during the debates over COVID mask mandates, vaccines and shutdowns.

It was pretty toxic, she said. For me, personally, I took a giant step back from social media. I used to post a lot of mostly progressive things on Facebook.

Now, the Wisconsin mayor keeps her ideological posts to X, which has a national and international focus.

She also worries about social media rumor mills and rabbit holes leading constituents astray.

From a city perspective, we just wish people would pick up the phone and call us. We are constantly fighting the rumor mill, she said.

Some activists counter that local governments and school boards are not always forthcoming with information or friendly with constituents who are less connected or come from opposing political camps.

Still, social media and live and replayed online broadcasts of meetings allow more residents and local businesses to engage with and keep tabs on local matters.

The more information that we share with the public about whats happening in town, the better. We also have a live feed for all of our council, board and commission meetings. If residents arent able to make it, they can always watch the recordings from our website, said Cook, mayor of Easton, on Marylands Eastern Shore.

The town is using social media as another way of sharing information with the community. Its a quick, easy and efficient way to share information, she said.

Even Nelson said social media helps drive interest and council meeting attendance on hot-button issues such as dogs, fireworks and marijuana,referring to city regulations and decisions on dispensaries after Montana voters legalized cannabis for recreational use in 2020.

Social media allows more residents and local businesses to keep tabs on city councils, county commissions and other local bodies. It can also create more local political tensions that mirror national divisions.

A police officer in Mobile, Alabama, talks to a man protesting a drag story hour at a local public library.

While many local elected offices are nonpartisan, partisan politics has increasingly become part of local elections and governance.

In Montana, Nelson, a self-described moderate Republican, voiced frustration with the far right conservative agenda from the state legislature impacting and dictating policy paths to local entities.

Conservative state lawmakers have passed laws requiring local school districts to open their enrollments to out-of-district students, and looked to put limitsonsome municipal zoning powers, including efforts to develop more affordable and multifamily units statewide.

National political and social media tensions including those centered around former president Donald Trump are increasingly evident in local elections and at local government meetings.

Back East, Easton, which has a population of close to 17,500, is part of Talbot County, which saw a contentious fight that drew national political and media attention over a Confederate statue in front of the county courthouse.

The Talbot Boys statue, erected in 1916, was relocated to a private memorial park in Virginia in 2022 after a vote by the county council. Cook said Easton has been able to avoid some of the wave of national divisiveness, but she has definitely seen a greater interest from Democratic and Republican groups in local races, as well as more questions from voters about her own party affiliation.

In town elections, we dont run on a party system, which I love. It shouldnt matter what youre registered as, if you need assistance from the town were going to be there, said Cook, a Democrat, who was elected mayor last year after serving as Town Council president.

That being said, I was asked more during my last campaign what I was registered as than I have before and both Central Committees seemed to want to be involved.

Get any of our free email newsletters news headlines, sports, arts & entertainment, state legislature, CFD news, and more.

See more here:
Local Lightning Rods: Social media, national partisan divisions, culture wars have changed tone and tenor of local ... - Wyoming Tribune

By Jason Koch, Editor

School districts across the state, including one that borders Warren County, have been dealing with culture war issues that take the focus off education.

But for the most part, Warren County hasnt had to deal with those issues.

I would say that largely we have not been confronted with that, Wright City R-II Superintendent Dr. Christopher Berger said. Have we had a little bit of it? Absolutely. St. Charles County is too close not to have some kind of residual effect to us.

The Wentzville School District has had a number of run-ins with Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, including over allegedly hiding its deliberations on instituting a new transgender bathroom policy to avoid input and outrage from parents.

Bailey sued the district after two members of the school board emerged as whistleblowers and more than 40 members of the community filed formal complaints with the attorney generals office.

Parents have the right to know who is in the bathroom with their children. Members of the Wentzville School Board knowingly and purposefully denied parents that right when they shrouded the transgender student bathroom usage policy in secrecy, directly violating the Open Meetings Law, Bailey said.

Fortunately for Warren County, that type of issue hasnt arisen here.

I can say with 100 percent confidence that Wright City is not being confronted with that to the level, Berger said.

He credited the board of education as a big reason why.

I think our board is sensible to those things, Berger said.

He also believes that people may be moving out of St. Charles County to get away from those issues, and that the community doesnt want to see them come up in a place like Wright City.

Im optimistic that people coming to our community are looking to get away from that stuff, Berger said. Wright City, for example, just has a history of being above the fray on some of that stuff.

Berger was thankful for that because he said the culture war issues at hand can do serious damage to school districts.

Some of our schools in the area are just torn apart with those types of things splitting their board, he said.

About the author: Jason Koch is the editor of The Warren County Record, and covers local news and government for the newspaper. He has won multiple awards from both the Indiana and Illinois APME and from the Illinois Press Association. He can be reached at 636-456-6397 or at jason@warrencountyrecord.com

Go here to see the original:
Wright City schools manage to 'stay above the fray' of culture wars - Warren County Record

Is there any cultural kerfuffle that the venerable British Museum cannot escape? Last month it was a packed fashion show in front of ancient Greek sculptures that touched off a firestorm. This week it is a collision of ancient Roman soldiers with the humorless hordes of Instagram, and results are not pretty.

To promote its new exhibition, Legion, museum marketers posted a message that read in part, Girlies, if youre single and looking for a man, this is your sign to go to the British Museums new exhibition, Life in the Roman Army, and walk around looking confused. Youre welcome. Ha ha, maybe.

As if the mere use of the word girlies by one of the worlds preeminent cultural institutions was not enough to get the ranks of academics and humorless Zoomers crying sexism, the cheeky suggestion that female museum-goers could be looking for something other than historical edification was enough to get them strenuously clutching at their pearls.

Londons Telegraph newspaper reported that the post was simply meant to poke fun at last years TikTok trend wherein, as the Daily Mail reported, women shared clips of themselves expressing bewilderment at how often the men in their lives think about the Roman Empire in some cases, more often than sex. Yet not everybody found it funny, though and (mercifully) not everyone uses TikTok.

A visiting research fellow at Kings College London, Claire Millington, commented on social media, Unrelenting fascist imagery and sexism dolloped on top.

The British Museum, recognizing a bad publicity move when it sees one, deleted the post and apologized: We are not actually suggesting that women need to look for dates or pretend to be stupid. Apologies to anyone who wasnt aware of the wider context who felt offended by this meme, a museum representative said.

That is something it did not do for what many consider to be a much greater cultural faux pas staging a fashion show in front of the Elgin Marbles, which Greek officials lambasted as demonstrating zero respect for Greek culture.

The Instagram post teasingly conflating Roman warriors with romance has as yet provoked no similar ire from Rome.

Under the stewardship of George Osbourne, a former chancellor of the Exchequer, the British Museum has been no stranger to controversy. Last year, say, the museum was found to have lost 2,000 items in its inventory. Mr. Osbourne has also come under fire for discussing a possible return of the Elgin Marbles to Athens discussions that apparently transpired without the sanction of Downing Street. What in the world was he thinking?

In respect of the outrage over the marketing of the ancient Roman show, should the scions of British culture really care? They might have no choice. A student at Londons prestigious Saint Martins School of Art told this correspondent: You would not believe the level of political correctness in this country right now, and its not only about what you can say or write. We are even coached on how we should frame sociologically the way we express ourselves artistically.

Freedom of expression appears to be having a better run in sunnier climes. The University of Florida has shuttered its chief diversity office and halted DEI-focused vendor contracts.

Far from Britain and a growing number of European countries that are flirting with the imposition of new rules on use of language in the name of gender equality, Argentina is pushing back against an overdose of political correctness as it applies to the Spanish lexicon.

Last week the Argentine president, Javier Milei, ordered the prohibition of so-called inclusive language by the national government. At a press conference his spokesman, Manuel Adorni, said that steps will be taken to prohibit inclusive language and everything related to gender perspective throughout the national public administration. He specified that the letter e, the @, and x will not be used along with the unnecessary inclusion of the feminine variation of a word in all public administration documents.

All nouns in Spanish have a gender, typically designated by the -o ending for masculine and the -a ending for feminine. Advocates of language inclusivity have concocted gender-neutral endings to make masculine words cover both sexes for example, todos (a masculine generic meaning everyone) would be made by such advocates into the gender neutral todxs, todes, or tod@s.

Mr. Milei will be having none of it. Last month, the ministry of defense stated that the use of so-called inclusive language did not correspond to the linguistic rules of Royal Spanish Academy and the Argentine Academy of Letters.

What do creeping curbs on truly free speech in Britain or for that matter, America have to do with the winds of change in Argentina? Not enough, at least not at present, boys and girlies.

Originally posted here:
London Fidgets in the Culture Wars as Buenos Aires Reframes the Game - The New York Sun