Culture
San Francisco school district stops using word 'chief' because it offends Native Americans
The decision to remove a potential reference to Native Americans was made by the district’s administration and would affect all of its 10,000 employee
June 1, 2022 4:19pm
Updated: June 1, 2022 6:34pm
The San Francisco Unified School District announced Wednesday that it would remove the word “chief” from all job titles there to avoid its connotations with Native Americans.
The decision to remove a potential reference to Native Americans was made by the district’s administration and would affect all of its 10,000 employees, said spokesperson Gentle Blythe.
“While there are many opinions on the matter, our leadership team agreed that, given that Native American members of our community have expressed concerns over the use of the title, we are no longer going to use it,” Blythe said in an email to the San Francisco Chronicle.
The SFUSD’s website lists at least 13 positions with the word “chief” in the title, such as Chief Technology Oficer, Chief of Staff and Chief of Policy and Operations.
The titles have not been changed on the website as of Thursday afternoon.
The decision was widely mocked on Twitter.
“Does the San Francisco school board have any ideas about educating children? Because I’d love to hear about those rather than their side gig as amateur linguists,” wrote Washington Post columnist Megan McArdle.
Does the San Francisco school board have any ideas about educating children? Because I’d love to hear about those rather than their side gig as amateur linguists. https://t.co/mPc7jp7feT
— Megan McArdle (@asymmetricinfo) May 26, 2022
Some noted that “chief” is not an indigenous word, but a European title. The French used it to describe leaders of the tribes they encountered in colonial North America.
The word “chief” comes from the French word “chef” which has nothing to do with Native Americans, but aggressive ignorance is the key ingredient of wokeness https://t.co/hvdCSUZ2Wm
— Buck Sexton (@BuckSexton) May 26, 2022
SFUSD has not yet decided on a replacement term but Blythe was careful not that dropping the word “chief” would not downgrade the seniority of the position.
“By changing how we refer to our division heads we are in no way diminishing the indispensable contributions of our district central service leaders,” Blythe added.
Last year, SFUSD moved to reduce its use of acronyms because they were a symptom of white supremacy.
