Virginia AG instructs state colleges to stop protecting gay students from discrimination.

[babylonsister]

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/03/05/virginia-ag-school/

Virginia attorney general instructs state colleges to stop protecting gay students from discrimination.


Just weeks after Gov. Bob McDonnell (R-VA) refused to renew an executive order that would have protected gay and lesbian state workers from discrimination, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli is asking the state’s colleges and universities “to rescind policies that ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.” Cuccinelli — who has previously argued “homosexual acts are…intrinsically wrong” — wrote a letter to all of the state’s public colleges and universities:

“It is my advice that the law and public policy of the Commonwealth of Virginia prohibit a college or university from including ’sexual orientation,’ ‘gender identity,’ ‘gender expression,’ or like classification as a protected class within its non-discrimination policy absent specific authorization from the General Assembly,” he wrote. Colleges that have included such language in their policies — which include all of Virginia’s leading schools — have done so “without proper authority” and should “take appropriate actions to bring their policies in conformance with the law and public policy of Virginia,” Cuccinelli wrote.

Most colleges protect gays from anti-discrimination and violence. Earlier this month, students at John Carroll University, a Jesuit college in Cleveland Ohio, staged a sit-in to protest “the university’s decisions not to include the protection of sexual orientation of in its anti-discrimination statement.” Other Jesuit universities, like “Canisius College, College of the Holy Cross, Georgetown University, Gonzaga University, Le Moyne College, and St. Louis University” all include “sexual orientation in their anti-discrimination policies.” The blogger Joe.My.God. writes, “Virginia is going to have a VERY hard time attracting top students and faculty after this, not to mention the inevitable backlash against people or companies willing to work with the Virginia higher education system.”

[Dappleganger]

1. Students need to revolt against this!

I am so glad we don't have to live there now (born and raised in VA), but this is a great tragedy and the students need to SUE and get this to SCOTUS!

[Nikki Stone1]

2. Oh these sex-obsessed politicians with their phobias....

Crap.

[gratuitous]

3. Is he going to post "Open Season" signs, too?

Not like the bigots really need permission. It is apparently the opinion of the state's attorney general that state agencies, on their own volition, are not allowed to go beyond the letter of the law in promulgating rules for their own conduct. You can only be nice to people if the law compels you to, otherwise, you're acting without proper authority, and Mr. Cuccinelli is liable to come down on offending institutions with hob-nailed boots.

[FiveGoodMen]

4. Once again ...

I call upon the god who isn't there to ...

1) Appear

2) Create Hell

3) Put this motherfucker in that Hell.

[aquart]

6. A very reasonable request.

[enlightenment]

5. I don't think he can do that -

According to the Virgina Higher Education website, institutions fall under the "The Restructured Higher Education Financial and Administrative Operations Act" of 2005. There are twelve broad 'goals' (mostly financial) that the institutions agreed to work toward, in return for more financial and administrative autonomy. Goal number 12 reads:

"Seek to ensure the safety and security of the Commonwealth's students on college and university campuses."

Ending this ban on discrimination could be considered a violation of that goal, since the institutions would be removing something that helps ensure the safety and security of those students.

At least I hope that's what the institutions would say . . .

[no_hypocrisy]

7. And what if these colleges refuse and continue the protection of gays, lesbians,

bisexual, and transgendered individuals? Stop their state funding?

And what's next? If these individuals are discriminated and then harassed and then persecuted, will their demands for assistance be refused altogether?