THE TOTAL IRRELEVANCE OF DIVERSITY DEANLETS.

New York representative Elise Stefanik's special committee on dressing down university presidents held another hearing today, and it was Columbia president Minouche Shafik on the hot seat, here being quizzed by Indiana representative Jim Banks over the repeated use of "folx" in some guidebook.

Fun moment from today's House Committee on Flagellating University Presidents:

JIM BANKS: Can you explain the word "folks" is spelled f-o-l-x throughout this guidebook?

COLUMBIA PRESIDENT SHAFIK: They don't know how to spell?

— David Weigel (@daveweigel) April 17, 2024

The video:

I put in QT too, but here's the video: pic.twitter.com/XSWvyUC5rC

— David Weigel (@daveweigel) April 17, 2024

I suspect there are people in Student Affairs who will rip her a new one for not getting the memo.  There are times when "folx" is, to use deanlet-speak, appropriate.  "Folx, plural noun — used especially to explicitly signal the inclusion of groups commonly marginalized."  Throw that "x" around promiscuously, see also "Latinx" or "womxn" or "mzxtyplkx," and some other deanlet will throw the problematic flag.

Maybe you’ve seen the word “folx” on Twitter and written it off as a typo or a new bit of texting shorthand that the kids are using these days. And while “folx” may seem like a handy abbreviation when you don’t feel like typing out the “k” and the “s” (I get it, you’re busy, we all need shortcuts sometimes), it’s actually a popular stand-in for the word “folks” used by queer-identifying people to refer to groups of other queer-identifying people. Folx is the deliberate queerification of a word meant to differentiate queer spaces and groups from the non-queer.

And the president of Columbia hasn't educated herself, or xerself, about it!

Perhaps a wag who jumped on the thread had it almost right.  "The response should have been 'it’s just an ungrammatical affectation, like using the noun Democrat incorrectly as an adjective…'"  That is, if you can call something "ungrammatical" any more.