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Journalism of Courage
Days after the Jawaharlal Nehru University Teachers’ Association (JNUTA) objected to the “gender discriminatory salutations” in the proforma asked to be filled up to update the telephone directory, the administration distributed the same in a revised format.
On March 20, the JNUTA wrote to the Deputy Registrar (Administration) expressing its “dismay” at a communication from him asking for information for the directory. “The proforma supplied asks women to state the gender and marital status of women faculty, while male faculty are referred to by their professional status, e.g., ‘Prof’. The JNUTA finds your seeking of this information both sexist and discriminatory, particularly because no man seems to be required to state his marital status and there is no ‘salutation’ listed for married men,” it had written.
“Further, neither of these pieces of information have any reasonable nexus with the idea of a directory…The JNUTA therefore requests that the proforma be revised so as to remove all traces of the aforementioned sexism…and reissued before faculty are asked to fill it out. We suggest that the column seeking ‘salutation’ be removed,” they had said.
The earlier proforma had options for ‘Prof, Miss or Mrs’ under the column ‘Salutations’. After the letter, the administration issued another format with the entire column deleted.
In a statement on March 22, the JNUTA had said, “Pursuant to JNUTA’s letter to the Deputy Registrar requesting revision of the proforma for supplying personal information for the JNU telephone directory, the proforma for submitting information has been revised along the following lines: The gender-discriminatory use of ‘salutations’ have been removed.”
“The JNUTA appreciates the responsiveness and prompt action of the JNU administration in this regard,” it added. Recently, a new team has taken over charge of the JNUTA. The first general body meeting under the new team is scheduled on April 1.
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