According to some conservative commentary, political correctness has run rampant in a couple of enclaves within the Tennessee governmental bureaucracy recently, namely an arm of the state Supreme Court and a branch of the University of Tennessee.
Actually, UT’s Office for Diversity and Inclusion and the Administrative Office of the Courts blundered into foolishly offending the real political correctness that prevails today in Tennessee politics. Let’s call it Tennessee Conservative Political Correctness, or CPC.
In case you’ve missed the recent raging:
n UT’s Diversity office posted on its website a call for UT personnel to use gender-neutral pronouns — “ze,” for example, instead of “he” or “she” — to promote inclusiveness and avoid offending those who have chosen a sexual identity inconsistent with birth certificates and such. No less a conservative authority than Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey declared this “the clearest example of political correctness run amok that I have seen in quite some time.”
n Someone within the Administrative Office of the Courts decided that forms filed in all divorce cases involving custody of children should list the parties as “parent 1” and “parent 2” rather than “mother” and “father.” Fox News promptly quoted Kendra Armstrong, a Memphis lawyer, as declaring the move “political correctness gone absolutely amok,” with members of the state Legislature’s Republican supermajority echoing the sentiment. The Administrative Office of the Courts, once its political faux pas was pointed out, backpedaled immediately.
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