Too often we ignore it, but historical context matters — even in matters as seemingly trivial as email signature blocks
Too often, we ignore history. The word itself suffers from negative connotations. “That’s ancient history!” signifies irrelevance. “You’re history!” is dismissive. Something “of historical interest” is buried in a small column at the end of a newspaper.
History, however, is nothing less than deep temporal context. It explains how we got here; it studies that which preceded the present. It’s important. Indeed, an event devoid of context lacks meaning.
Even something as simple as a casual insult requires context. With context, we might understand an insult as justified, unearned, or simply a joke between friends. Without context, meaning can elude us.
Sometimes, I think that history majors at the university where I teach should be renamed “context majors.” Instead of saying, “I study history,” they could say, “I study context.”
Context reveals meaning. Without it, we’re blind to significance. We’re unaware of content and effect. A misstep is often well-intended but lacking in sufficient consideration of context.
Thus it was with the South Dakota Board of Regents’ policy enactment governing email signatures. (The Board of Regents governs eight state educational institutions including the University of South Dakota (USD), my employer.) On its face, the policy was neutral — perhaps even trivial. The policy itself appears uncontroversial and even prudent, on first read. But in operation, it has proved both controversial and imprudent.
Context is important. Here’s some: Some employers provide each employee with a prepopulated email signature block. There’s no room for variation. It’s like a corporate name tag. Or a preprinted business card. But until recently, USD employees had to create their own email signature block. Indeed, that’s still the case.
As one might expect, there is quite a bit of variation in terms of content, style, and even font selection when everyone designs their own signature block. Then at the end of last year, the Regents enacted Policy 1.7.6 — an email signature block (or “content information”) policy. It states that its intent is to “create standards and expectations” and “protect a cohesive message and image.”
To that end, signature blocks must now be constrained to (1) one’s name, job title, and educational credentials/degrees; (2) addresses and phone numbers; (3) web links; and (4) the institutional logo/motto. That’s sensible, unless one considers a fuller context, because prior to Policy 1.7.6, some USD employees had included their tribal affiliation in their email signature block.
The email signature block of one such employee, Megan Red Shirt-Shaw, the director of USD’s Native Student Services, recited that she is an enrolled member of Oglala na Sicangu Lakota. Interestingly, when USD hired Red Shirt-Shaw in 2020, its press release prominently recited her tribal affiliation along with her other credentials.
Additional context is also important. According to USD’s student newspaper, the Volante, there are 154 Native American students at USD. The mission of our Native Student Services is to support those students. It does so by providing a “welcoming environment, conducive to the exploration and discovery of diversity” given that “such an environment is an essential part of the … learning process.”
Red Shirt-Shaw maintains that she has a responsibility to claim the tribal nations that make her who she is. It’s part of her credentials (and credentials are permitted by the policy). But USD told her to remove her tribal affiliation from her email signature block. Otherwise, she would face discipline, including possible suspension or termination. That’s pretty heavy-handed.
The Regents’ communications director countered that its policy “ensures a consistent approach to official employee communications across our institutions.”
Interests of consistency outweigh the values of diversity, the aim of demonstrating a welcoming attitude toward Native students, or even providing an environment productive of learning, it would seem.
Now consider a wider context. Consider South Dakota’s history as additional context, because context shapes meaning in important ways.
In South Dakota, our history (as possibly reflected in the above 1905 public domain image of the Rosebud Reservation Indian School posted on wikimedia commons) has included official policies bent on erasing indigenous languages. It has included the banning of religious ceremonies. It has included, regrettably, attempts to destroy non-Western cultures and replace them with a homogenized culture. A “consistent” culture.
Some may retort that all that is “ancient history” – that there is no longer any official mandate to eliminate indigenous languages, cultures, or religions. But it’s not ancient history. As James Baldwin noted: “History is not the past. It is the present. We carry our history with us.” One cannot ignore history any more than one can ignore context. Doing so risks misapprehending the present. It risks doing unintended harm.
How convincing are those who claim that policies aimed at erasing Native cultures are just a thing of the past when those policies, however neutral on their face, are still allowed to be wielded — even in something as seemingly trivial as an email signature block policy? This is a history which need not repeat itself any longer. If, as I expect, the new policy was simply an unfortunate oversight, it should be corrected.
C.S. Lewis said it best when he explained that mistakes can be fixed, though never by ignoring them. A mistake “can be put right; but only by going back till you find the error and working it afresh from that point, never by simply going on.” Let’s fix this.
Thomas E. Simmons is a professor at the University of South Dakota Knudson School of Law in Vermillion. His views are his own and not the views of USD, its administrators, or the South Dakota Board of Regents. The opinions expressed above are merely those of a humble private citizen.
