One of England’s leading higher education establishments will dilute its scheme to eliminate gendered language from its graduation ceremony
This follows an initial announcement welcoming the pending decision in March 2025: the university voted to remove grammatically masculine or feminine Latin words from some of its ceremonies to appease ‘non-binary’ students. (‘Non-binary’ is a form of gender identity where believers claim to be neither male nor female.)
Originally, masculine words such as magistri (masters) and doctores (doctors) were to be replaced with vos, a neutral pronoun meaning ‘you.’ Despite the university’s governing body, the Congregation, voting to ratify the proposal to eliminate gendered Latin text, the words “magistri” and “doctores” would stay in the ceremony for use as salutations, since
they form part of the tradition handed down to us and they connote the respect shown by University Officers to graduands in the ceremony.
It’s unclear how much influence this brief victory for tradition will enjoy; historic wording “dominus” or “domina” (sir or madam) has been replaced with a single word “sodalis”, meaning comrade or fellow.
