To ban them telling you via an email signature is quite frankly utterly absurd, and to then fire them for doing so is absurdity on steroids.

I find this argument disingenuous. The college did not have a policy against telling people your gender. A simple (Mr., Miss, Mr. or Ms.) before the name would do the job (e.g., "(Mr.) Shua Wilmot"). Choosing pronouns to deliver the message, when pronouns are being given elsewhere for political reasons by Mary's and John's, and doing so is against one's employer's rules, is an intentional provocation; dismissal seems a reasonable response.

Whether the school should have a pronoun rule is another question. We can think the rule is silly, so no one should be fired for violating it. But this is where the "This is the life we've chosen" arguments comes into play. Houghton seems like a place that is going to have rules that some of us would consider silly. That is their privilege. (Ms.) Reagan Zelaya should have understood that.

I wonder whether being a "lame-duck" who had already resigned affected her decision. Maybe she thought "What can they do:? Fire me? I already quit.") (We don't know Mr. Wilmot's situation.)