A northern Virginia town has been excluded from a countywide police training academy after the town’s chief complained about Chinese signatures on trainees’ graduation certificates.
Herndon Police Chief Maggie DeBoard complained that the academy director, Maj. Wilson Lee, used Chinese characters to sign the certificates that graduates receive when they complete training at the Fairfax County Criminal Justice Academy.
In an email sent last month and obtained by The Associated Press, DeBoard told Lee, “I just found out that the academy graduation certificates were signed by you in some other language, not in English. This is unacceptable for my agency. I don’t want our Herndon officers to receive these and I am requesting that they are issued certificates signed in English, the language that they are expected to use as an officer.”
So she’s asking the academy director to use a fake signature?
Does the police chief not understand the purpose of signatures?
This is NoVA. As somebody who spent most of my life in NoVA I am confident the Chief knows exactly what they’re doing and that this is blatant racism. This is just him declaring which side of the “culture war” he’s on, in no uncertain terms
Probably not, but the police chief certainly understands racism and nationalism and exclusion, at least intuitively.
But aren’t American legal names in English? So if you signed it using your Chinese name, wouldn’t that be a fake signature?
No. The US doesn’t even have an official language. In addition to that, your signature can look like whatever you want it to look like. Lots of people just make squiggles which don’t even resemble their name.
Your signature doesn’t even have to be a name, it just has to be consistent.
The only thing consistent about my signature is that it’s a squiggly line that vaguely resembles the first letter of my first name.
Then, would signing with the English name be a fake signature? Or is it fake only because it’s inconsistent?
The way a person has signed their name on their official state identification card (typically a driver’s license) is their official signature. So, kind of, yes, it could be seen as unacceptable/'fake" if the signature the person used does not closely match whatever is on their ID.
Usually, this doesn’t matter because people’s signatures gradually evolve over time naturally. But!
This is a way that a lot of (Republican) people try to invalidate ballots. Looking at the signature on the ballot, comparing it to the person’s official signature, and saying their vote doesn’t count because it isn’t close enough to a match on their ID.
… No.
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Yep. My signature is unrecognizable garbage in any language. No one ever called me on it.
a lot of signatures I’ve seen are unintelligble, and it would therefore not matter what ‘language’ they are written in as an identifying measure. I’m also unaware of any such requirement eg. a contract.
Usually, a signature is someone’s name written and stylized. However, that is optional. All that needs to be is some mark that represents you. It can be a series of squiggles, a picture, or even the traditional “X” for people who can’t read and write. As long as it records the intent of the parties involved in a contractual agreement, it’s a valid signature.
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This is one of the dumbest complaints I’ve read in a long time. Prime characteristic of a signature is the individuality, not the assumed language. Maybe one in twenty signatures is actually (halfway) legible,
