(NAME-MCE) Strong Reactions to Virgina Official's Stance on Campus Gay Rights

[Anselmo Villanueva]

March 9, 2010

Strong Reactions to Virgina Official's Stance on Campus Gay Rights

Students at many of Virginia's public colleges and universities began
planning Monday to fight the declartion of Attorney General Kenneth T.
Cuccinelli II last week that that the institutions lack the authority to bar
discrimination based on sexual orientation, while Gov. Robert McDonnell
signaled that he might take a different tack, The Washington Post reported.
Groups opposing the attorney general's letter cropped up across Facebook,
business leaders expressed qualms that the stance would hurt the state's
ability to attract students and workers, and the governor said in an
interview that he'd consider signing state legislation extending legal
protections on the basis of sexual orientation if the legislature were to
pass one.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/08/AR2010030804999.html

Students irate at Cuccinelli over gay-rights policies

By Daniel de Vise and Rosalind S. Helderman  Washington Post Staff Writer
March 9, 2010; B01

Campus activists across Virginia put spring break on hold Monday to mobilize
against Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II, who has riled student groups
with a letter advising public universities to retreat from their policies
against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

More than 3,000 people joined the Facebook page "We Don't Want
Discrimination In Our State Universities And Colleges!" Nearly 1,000 people
joined another, started by activists at the College of William and Mary. The
University of Virginia group Queer & Allied Activism urged students to
protest on Cuccinelli's Facebook page and on Twitter.

Students at Virginia Commonwealth University, one of the few in the state
not on break, planned a rally for noon Wednesday, with several hundred
students committed. At Christopher Newport University, student Republican
and Democratic leaders will discuss their next steps at a bipartisan meeting
Friday.

"I've never gotten so many e-mails from students wanting to do something,"
said Brandon Carroll, 21, president of the student government at Virginia
Tech. He said any erosion in gay rights at state universities is "going to
make us lose top students. It's going to make us lose top faculty."

A growing number of industry leaders have also lined up against the
directive from Cuccinelli (R), some portraying it as a threat to the quality
and competitiveness of Virginia's higher-education system.

On Thursday, Cuccinelli wrote in a letter that Virginia's public
universities could not adopt policies that prohibit discrimination based on
sexual orientation "absent specific authorization from the General
Assembly." All of Virginia's largest state schools have adopted such
language. Faculty leaders at William and Mary sought expanded protections
for gender identity and expression earlier this school year.

In an interview Monday, Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R) supported the legal
reasoning of Cuccinelli's letter but stressed that he would allow neither
colleges nor other state agencies to discriminate.

"There's a long list of opinions. It's all separation-of-powers issues," he
said. "But that doesn't mean that a governor can't say to his managers, 'I
will not tolerate discrimination in this administration.' "

McDonnell indicated Monday that he might sign legislation extending legal
protections on the basis of sexual orientation if it were to pass the
General Assembly. "I'd consider it," he said. "I'd have to look at the legal
arguments for it."

Although there was little sign of support for Cuccinelli on Virginia's
campuses, others rallied behind him. The Family Foundation sent its
supporters an e-mail titled "AG Follows Law, Gets Ripped" and promised to
resist any push to have the legislature address the issue again before it
adjourns Saturday.

The group argued that no evidence has been advanced that gay students or
faculty have faced discrimination.

"The goal is not anti-discrimination -- it is forced acceptance of a
lifestyle that many Virginians find antithetical to their faith," the e-mail
read.

In Richmond, Democrats raced to condemn Cuccinelli's letter and pushed
McDonnell to distance himself from the attorney general, with whom he shared
a ticket in November. In fiery speeches on the floor of both legislative
chambers, they urged McDonnell to send a bill with his blessing to the
legislature to write nondiscrimination against gays into the state code.

The GOP-led House of Delegates has declined twice this year to act on
similar proposals.

"The governor has said he has a personal policy of nondiscrimination. And
that is fantastic," said Del. David L. Englin (D-Alexandria). "But actions
speak louder than words."

Leaders of academia attacked the state directive on several fronts. The head
of the Virginia conference of the American Association of University
Professors wrote in a letter to the governor that any discrimination not
grounded in qualification or merit "is abhorrent to the values of higher
education."

Public universities generally are afforded autonomy by state governments in
writing policy, said Peter McPherson, president of the Association of Public
and Land-grant Universities. Virginia state code, however, is "somewhat
vague" on who makes the rules, said Kirsten Nelson, spokeswoman for the
State Council of Higher Education for Virginia.

University officials mostly declined to comment, saying only that they were
exploring the legal points raised in the letter.

Robert M. O'Neil, former president of U-Va. and now director of the school's
Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression, said in an
e-mail, "it is far from clear that the Attorney General would be expected to
or even empowered to turn back the clock on such a vital issue of public
importance," noting that the state's higher-education community is
"unanimous in its commitment to equality."

Some lawmakers called Cuccinelli's stand consistent with legal opinions
offered by past attorneys general, who have advised local governments that
they do not have the legal right to add sexual orientation to their policies
without authorization from the General Assembly.

"It seems to me that he was trying to get out his legal opinion," said Sen.
Robert Hurt (R-Pittsylvania). "It doesn't seem like a clarion call to
discriminate against anyone."

Staff writers Jenna Johnson, Anita Kumar, Fredrick Kunkle and Robert
McCartney contributed to this report.