Latest news with #JasonBonander
Yahoo
31-01-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
White House orders pronouns removed from email signatures at fed agencies
Jan. 31 (UPI) -- Employees of at least two federal agencies are being instructed by the Trump administration to immediately stop using pronouns in their email signatures, according to memos obtained by multiple media outlets Friday. One of the memos was sent to employees of the Centers for Disease Control by Jason Bonander, the CDC's Chief Information Officer, according to ABC News and the tech news website Gizmodo. The memo cites executive orders signed by President Donald Trump on his first day on office last week which aim to "establish male and female as biological reality and protect women from radical gender ideology" and scrub references that "promote or otherwise inculcate gender ideology" from agency communications. "Pronouns and any other information not permitted in the policy must be removed from CDC/ATSDR employee signatures by 5.p.m. ET on Friday," Bonander's memo states. "Staff are being asked to alter signature blocks by 5.p.m. ET today (Friday, January 31, 2025) to follow the revised policy." Sources told ABC News employees of the Department of Transportation also received a similar demand regarding email signatures on Thursday even as they were coping with the D.C. plane crash near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in which 67 people were killed. It remained unclear on Friday if employees at other federal agencies were hit with similar demands. On Wednesday, a separate memo titled "Initial Guidance Regarding President Trump's Executive Order Defending Women" issued by Charles Ezell, acting director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, was sent to CDC personnel demanding that employees delete anything "promoting gender ideology" from their materials, according to a copy obtained by Gizmodo. The memo instructs that the word "gender" be replaced with "sex" on the CDC website and within agency communications. It similarly ordered personnel to "review agency email systems such as Outlook and turn off features that prompt users for their pronouns." The process by which the decisions are being made remains opaque, an anonymous CDC employee told the website. "You don't even know who's making these decisions. There's a lot of anonymity," the employee told Gizmodo. "Every day there's a new surprise. We don't know what exactly the endpoint is going to be. Even before this, we were told to stop communicating altogether, even send emails to anyone outside CDC we wouldn't normally work with."
Yahoo
31-01-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump's latest attack on ‘Wokeness:' No pronouns in federal worker email signatures
Federal government workers at several agencies were ordered to remove pronouns from email signatures by the end of Friday, citing President Trump's executive orders rolling back diversity initiatives. The Department of Transportation, Department of Energy and Centers for Disease Control all sent similar instructions to employees telling them to remove their preferred pronouns from their official email signatures. 'Pronouns and any other information not permitted in the policy must be removed from …. employee signatures,' Jason Bonander, the CDC's chief information officer, wrote in a mass email message to staff. Bonander and other officials cited Trump's executive orders rolling back diversity, equity and inclusion measures. Calling for the restoration of 'biological truth,' the orders called for the removal of so-called DEI 'language in Federal discourse, communications and publications.' The emails included instructions for editing email signatures to assist tech-phobic workers. It wasn't immediately clear if other agencies across the federal government have also issued similar edicts. A memo from the Office of Personnel Management also directed officials to review agency email systems and disable features that ask users to choose their pronouns. Trump and his MAGA allies believe that allowing the display of pronouns amounts to an endorsement of a pro-LGBTQ agenda and umdermines the traditional belief that all people are either male or female. People who include pronouns in their email signatures counter that they do so to inform others of how they want to be addressed or referred to. Along with the war on pronouns, Trump last week barred transgender troops from serving in the military.
Yahoo
31-01-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump Administration Issues Its Pettiest Order Yet—on Email Signatures
In perhaps the Trump administration's pettiest move yet, multiple federal agencies are ordering federal employees to remove any pronouns from their email signatures by end of day Friday, according to ABC News. 'Pronouns and any other information not permitted in the policy must be removed from CDC/ATSDR employee signatures by 5.p.m. ET on Friday,' read a message from from CDC Chief Information Officer Jason Bonander on Friday. 'Staff are being asked to alter signature blocks by 5.p.m. ET today (Friday, January 31, 2025) to follow the revised policy.' Workers at the Department of Transportation and the Department of Energy received similar messages on Thursday, amid the chaos of the D.C. plane crash. 'In my decade-plus years at CDC I've never been told what I can and can't put in my email signature,' an anonymous employee told ABC. The messages cited Trump's recent anti-DEI executive orders. This is yet another attack on Trump's part, focusing on policing a form of self-expression that has no impact on the ability of federal workers to do the jobs they've sworn to do.
