(NAME-MCE) Reversal in Virginia on Anti-Gay Bias

[Anselmo Villanueva]

Reversal in Virginia on Anti-Gay Bias

Scott Jaschik  Inside Higher Ed  March 11, 2010

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/03/11/virginia

Virginia's public colleges and universities may be able to ban
anti-gay discrimination after all.

Days after the state's attorney general told the institutions that
they couldn't ban discrimination against gay people, the governor said
they could. Gov. Robert F. McDonnell's announcement came amid growing
student protests about the attorney general's policy and strong
statements by some college officials that suggested they would ignore
the attorney general. Both McDonnell and the attorney general, Kenneth
T. Cuccinelli II, are Republicans.

Cuccinelli infuriated many students and faculty members in Virginia
when they learned from The Washington Post that he had sent a letter
to public colleges and universities last week saying that they lacked
the authority to bar discrimination against gay people as part of
their anti-bias policies. Cuccinelli argued that only the General
Assembly could bar such discrimination and since it had not done so,
the public colleges couldn't.

If that logic held, many public colleges would have been forced to
change their anti-bias policies, which do in fact include sexual
orientation among factors on which discrimination is banned.

On Wednesday, as 1,000 students from Virginia Commonwealth University
held a protest of the attorney general's letter, the governor weighed
in. He issued an "executive directive" in which he said: "The Equal
Protection Clause of the United States Constitution prohibits
discrimination without a rational basis against any class of persons.
Discrimination based on factors such as one’s sexual orientation or
parental status violates the Equal Protection Clause of the United
States Constitution. Therefore, discrimination against enumerated
classes of persons set forth in the Virginia Human Rights Act or
discrimination against any class of persons without a rational basis
is prohibited."

Other parts of the directive referenced state employees, not students,
leading some to suggest that the governor's action protected only the
colleges' employment policies and not the treatment of students. But a
spokesman for the governor told the Associated Press that the
governor's action was intended to allow colleges to keep their current
policies (which do ban discrimination against gay students and
employees).

John Casteen, president of the University of Virginia, issued a
statement to all students and faculty members praising the governor's
action and saying that he believed it covered employees and students
alike.

Before the governor acted, another president -- Taylor Reveley of the
College of William and Mary -- issued a statement that said that his
institution would not stop protecting groups of people from bias.

He wrote: "William and Mary neither discriminates against people nor
tolerates discrimination on our campus. Those of us at W&M insist that
members of our campus community be people of integrity who have both
the capacity to meet their responsibilities to the university and the
willingness to engage others with civility and respect. We do not
insist, however, that members of our community possess any other
particular characteristics, whether denominated in race, religion,
nationality, sex, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or
expression, or any other of the myriad personal characteristics that
differentiate human beings.

"We certainly do not discriminate against people on such grounds, or
tolerate discrimination against them. This is the way we live our
lives together at William and Mary, because we believe this is the way
we should live our lives together. This is not going to change."