Roll that headline around for a bit, before diving in to the story. What could it possibly mean?
When 61 law enforcement trainees graduated last month from Fairfax County’s Criminal Justice Training Academy ... each received a certificate signed by the academy’s director, county police Maj. Wilson Lee, who is Chinese American.
Lee, whose given name is Lee Wai-Shun, signed the certificates in Chinese, as he typically does. Among those who received certificates March 7 were three new officers from the Herndon town police force — the first trainees from that department to attend the academy since Lee took command more than a year ago. When Herndon Police Chief Maggie DeBoard noticed the Chinese signature shortly before the graduation ceremony, she was not pleased.
“This is not acceptable for my agency,” she told Lee in an email. “I don’t want our Herndon officers to receive these.”
Not only did Fairfax County refuse to issue new certificates as DeBoard requested, but a top Fairfax official has notified DeBoard that Herndon police trainees will no longer be welcome at the academy.
My full name is 29 letters. When I sign it, it’s a stylized first letter of my first name, a squiggle, a loop up roughly where a lowercase “h” would be, a squiggle, a space, a stylized upper letter, a long squiggle, and then I kind of trail off into a jumble of whatever as I get bored with the process and frustrated at how long my legal name is. When I signed my mortgage paperwork, the first signature looked very different than the last signature because I was literally over writing my name.
My name is unique, my first name you’ve likely not heard (or if you have, so rarely that it would stand out as deeply unique), my second name I’ve ever heard anybody else ever have, and my last name uses unique letters and is uncommon. My first name is not of American or European origin; it is roots are Middle Eastern. I frequently, and I mean at least weekly, am asked to spell my first name upon introduction because people aren’t sure they’ll say it right without me spelling it aloud.
Number of times I’ve been told to redo my signature on official or informal documents? Zero.
Number of times I’ve been told my signature is unsatisfactory? Zero.
Number of times I’ve been told the Middle Eastern spelling of my name needs to be anglicized? Zero.
Number of times the legality of my paperwork is questioned due to my signature? Zero.
My mother goes by her middle name, not her first name. On legal paperwork, she signs her name first initial, her full middle and last name. My father doesn’t sign anything close to his name. My best friend signs her name and adds a star to the end because she’s a former Disney face character and it’s a force of habit. Their answers to the above? Also zero.
So this lady, while she not be xenophobic, is certainly displaying xenophobic behavior by demanding a Chinese-American write the Anglicized version of his name because she won’t accept his signature.
First off, it’s not up to her to “accept” the validity of a signature on the document, the document is indisputably valid by government oversight bodies which moderate the program, its training, and their certification process. If the governing body that manages that agency accepts it, she has no business not accepting it.
Secondly, all three had the same signature, so clearly that’s the signature across all people completing the training. By requesting something different, she actually makes it harder to take the validity of the document at face value. It removes standardization and creates doubt when some people have one signature and others have a different one from the same graduating class.
Thirdly, having worked in the police department and coordinated this type of new officer training, their passing or failing was made known to her irrespective of the document and, should they change police departments, the validity of the training and their pass/fail status is verified through their hiring process, not the document. Sure, it may be presented with hiring paperwork, but it’s not presented in lieu of verification. The paperwork is largely commemorative, with the possible benefit of getting candidates transferring departments conditional hires pending verification.
Fourth, the only people in these programs are conditional hires for police departments who have already completed the hiring process, whose instatement to their role is conditional pending successful completion of the course. The department that hires them picks the academy, sends them there, and they return. It’s not like college, where you go, get a degree, then seek a job. The only way to be there is to be sent by a police department. So she is contesting the paperwork of officers she hired, sent to the school that her department chose, a school likely all the other officers went to, completed the training she selected, and returned. She knows the paperwork is valid simply because she would have been the one that sent them. These aren’t even officers transferring from another department showing this paperwork and her questioning it… They’re new officers she sent to the program. So why or how on earth would she think what they returned with could be invalid or foraged knowing that the only way they could be there to begin with was because she sent them? She knew they were going, she was notified they passed as she was the sending agency, so why would the certificates be unacceptable? She doesn’t even need the certificates, so it makes no sense she’d make a big deal out of the signature.
Finally, the issuing executive’s name is Lee. If we were making a case against forgery, why would she say to sign “Lee,” something which is easy to forge, vs. the Chinese spelling, which would be immeasurably harder to forge?
The whole “he could have written I want a hamburger in Chinese and I wouldn’t know” argument is nonsense. I could argue my squiggles in my 30-character long name actually was me saying “I do not accept” and my initials, but the fact is whatever you write in a signature line implies legality and consent through inferring. Lack of consent to the legality of the paperwork comes via a lack of signature or an outright declaration of disagreement. Anybody who watches Judge Judy can tell you that. A squiggle on a line for a signature is a signature unless it’s absent or clearly contested and acknowledged as contested. And the fact is there’s no reason to suppose the man wrote in Chinese that he wants a hamburger vs. his name on a signature line, nor would the document be less valid if that is what he wrote since he didn’t denote clearly and demonstrably his dissent. If I charge something on my credit card and sign on the signature line “I do not accept this charge” in French, the bank doesn’t refund my money because I said in French on the signature line I contest the charge. They say “it’s reasonable to assume that’s a signature” and the charge remains. Same applies here… There is no reason to assume he put his Five Guys order on this line instead of his signature, so it’s treated as a signature.
