Forums Showed Support of Diversity by VCU

Community forums were held today at Virginia Commonwealth University in response to the advice of Virginia's Attorney General that VCU (and all other state universities) remove sexual orientation as a protected group from their anti-discrimination policies. Many people spoke up in support of keeping university policy the same, to protect the gay community from discrimination. There were concerns raised that unless VCU made it known that they were strongly supportive of including sexual orientation as a protected group against discrimination, that they would lose top staff, faculty, and students, and that VCU and the state in general would receive negative publicity that would severely damage the reputation of the state and university. A few voiced the potential concern that the state may try to pressure state universities to revise their policy by threatening to cut funding to the university, which currently comprises 75% of the university budget funds. Some voiced confusion as to what the federal legislation was, as they had heard of a supreme court ruling supporting including sexual orientation in anti-discrimination law.

According to Rebecca Glenberg, the ACLU's legal director,

"In Romer v. Evans, 517 U.S. 620 (1996), the United States Supreme Court held that discriminatory laws based on sheer animus toward lesbian and gay persons violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Later, in Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003), the Court ruled that consensual, adult sexual relationships are protected by the Fourteenth Amendment, notwithstanding societal views regarding the morality of such relationships. Consistent with these principles, courts have repeatedly held that public employers may not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation..."

With federal backing on the side of human rights, it looks like the state of Virginia may need to have the supreme court force their hand to help end discrimination against the gay community. Interesting that the supreme court also had to pressure Virginia into ending discrimination against the Black community, and people with disabilities. Third time's a charm Virginia, I hope you don't need any hand holding this time when it comes to upholding human rights.

Below follows the response to the community forums held today at VCU from the Provost:

To the VCU Community:

I’m pleased to report that more than 1,000 VCU faculty, staff, students, alumni and several members of the General Assembly attended the forums held today to discuss Attorney General Cuccinelli’s advice that the boards of visitors of the Commonwealth’s public universities and colleges consider rescinding policies that ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

The discussions were productive and, I believe, overwhelmingly reflected the VCU community’s passion for diversity, inclusiveness, acceptance and equality. Our statement of nondiscrimination is a core value of our University. And let me assure you, VCU’s policy on nondiscrimination stands until and unless it is altered by the Board of Visitors.

We will continue to collect comments and opinions from our faculty, staff and students and will share those with others of the University’s administration and the Board of Visitors. If you were unable to attend one of the forums and would like to share your opinions, please send an email to provost@vcu.edu or simply reply to this message. Many thanks to those of you who have shared your thoughts – the president and I have received hundreds of emails already.

We will hold additional forums in the near future and give you ample notification. However, we pulled today’s forums together on short notice because of the extraordinary concern being expressed by our University community.

Additional resources for information on VCU’s commitment to equity and diversity are available online:
-- VCU Code of Ethics: http://www.president.vcu.edu/ethics/
-- VCU Creed: http://www.vcu.edu/vcu/creed.php
-- VCU 2020: Vision for Excellence: http://www.vcu.edu/cie/pdfs/VCU_2020_final2.pdf
-- VCU’s Five Year Diversity Plan: http://www.diversity.vcu.edu/diversityplan/
-- VCU’s Diversity Web site: http://www.diversity.vcu.edu/

Finally, I want to assure you that diversity and equality are embedded in the VCU community. Our University culture is based on the integrity of the academy and on our pursuit of knowledge, understanding and mutual respect.

Sincerely,

Stephen D. Gottfredson
Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs

The Provost and President of VCU have both encouraged the VCU community to contact them with any comments and concerns that they have. Here again follows contact information for them, as well as the state Attorney General and Governor:

Michael Rao

President, VCU and VCU Health System

president@vcu.edu

(804) 828-1200

Stephen Gottfredson

Provost and VP Acad Affairs

sdgottfr@vcu.edu

(804) 828-1345

Ken Cuccinelli

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/KenCuccinelli#!/KenCuccinelli?v=wall

Email: http://www.vaag.com/ContactUsForm/ContactForm.aspx

(804) 786-2071

Office of the Attorney General

900 East Main Street

Richmond, VA 23219

Bob McDonnell

Governor of Virginia

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Governor-of-Virginia/61634046094

Email: http://www.governor.virginia.gov/TheAdministration/contactGovernor.cfm

Phone: (804) 786-2211

Fax: (804) 371-6351

Office of the Governor

Patrick Henry Building, 3rd Floor

1111 East Broad Street

Richmond, Virginia 23219