Inclusive writing at HES-SO Valais/Wallis is over. The Valais Grand Council decided on Tuesday to ban its use in official communications from the Haute Ecole. Students will also no longer be obliged to use it. A decision adopted by 85 votes to 38, which followed the submission, in mid-June, of a postulate denouncing this “ideological drift”.
The text discussed was based on the observation that inclusive writing is used in all the institution’s documents, as recommended by the rectorate of the HES-SO which defines the rules for the 28 higher education institutions concerned. However, as recalled by the UDC, PLR and Center elected officials at the origin of the text, neither the French Academy nor the Valais public institutions recommend this use.
For the latter, the adoption of inclusive writing by the HES-SO Valais/Wallis is therefore an ideological position which “rushes students by wanting to revolutionize their way of writing”. And UDC MP Blaise Melly takes the example of students “who were forced to rewrite their work, because they did not use inclusive writing”.
On the side of the opponents, Konstantin Bumann of the centrist Neo Valais group took the floor to make it clear that, according to his party, the choice to use inclusive writing was fully within the framework of academic freedom: “ The Council of State should therefore not get involved in this.”
An opinion shared by Christophe Darbellay. “I’m as allergic to inclusive writing as you are. I must even say that it causes skin rashes for me. But the HES-SO Valais/Wallis is an academic institution which benefits from freedom,” the State Councilor in charge of education tried to argue. An intervention which triggered a lot of laughter in the assembly, but which clearly did not convince the elected officials.
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