Arkansas Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders will prohibit the use of the term “Latinx” in government documents through an executive order.
Sanders, who was sworn in as the first female governor of Arkansas on Tuesday, justified the ban of the word “Latinx” in government documents and name titles by citing a Pew Research poll that found only 3% of American Latinos and Hispanics used the term to describe themselves.
“Ethnically insensitive and pejorative language has no place in official government documents or government employee titles,” Sanders’ executive order states. “The government has a responsibility to respect its citizens and use ethnically appropriate language, particularly when referring to ethnic minorities.”
Progressive groups and some politicians have pushed the term “Latinx” in recent years as a gender-neutral alternative to the Spanish words Latina and Latino.
Sanders noted in the executive order that the Real Academia Española, a Madrid-based institution that serves as a linguistic guide for Spanish, officially rejects the use of “x” to replace “o” and “a” as a way to identify gender in the language.
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“One can no more easily remove gender from Spanish and other romance languages than one can remove vowels and verbs from English,” the executive order states. “It is the policy of the Governor’s administration to prohibit the use of culturally insensitive words for official state government business.”
Sanders now serves in the same post as her father, Mike Huckabee, who was governor of Arkansas from 1996 to 2007. She is the youngest governor in the country at 40 years old.
Another executive order set to be signed by Sanders will ban the use of TikTok on state devices and government networks — an action first reported by Fox News Digital. The order follows similar bans from the federal government and more than 20 other states.
Sanders previously worked as the press secretary for former President Donald Trump in 2019. She told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview that as a mother, education will be a core issue in her governorship.
“I’ve made no secret that the biggest priority I have for this session is a large-scale education reform package,” Sanders said. “I am living it every day with a fifth-grader, a third-grader and a first-grader, and I feel the impact of education and what it means and what it means to each kid.”
