Virginia’s Attorney General Tells Colleges: Ignore Gay Rights

by Sara Bernard · 2010-03-17 14:53:00 UTC
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First a Mississippi high school’s prom was canceled because one female student wanted to wear a tux and bring her girlfriend. Now colleges and universities in Virginia are receiving a similarly ludicrous directive: Don’t include sexual orientation in anti-discrimination policies.

On March 4, Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli sent a letter to Virginia's higher education institutions advising them to remove existing LGBT protections from campus laws. Protecting this community, he said, would require approval from the Virgina General Assembly.

Give me a break. What about the Equal Protection Clause -- the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution? Is this a sleazy effort to extend Virginia's social conservatism to school campuses? (They all have specific protection against LGBT discrimination already in place.)

Luckily, thousands of students and faculty are up in arms against Cuccinelli's statements. From a Facebook page to letters to the governor to a thousand protesters rallying at Virginia Commonwealth University, Virginia's schools are furious and making sure everyone knows it. Partly due to the uproar, governor Bob McDonnell sent an email to all state employees saying that employment discrimination "will not be tolerated." But that's just an email. As one blogger put it, "that has about as much legal authority as wet pieces of paper in the rain." For things to change, the words "sexual orientation" should be printed into Virginia's anti-discrimination laws.

This is the last thing we need -- regressive and unjust policies that stifle higher education! Help protect anti-discrimination laws on campus and throughout Virginia by signing this petition to send a letter to governor McDonnell and Virginia's House and Senate.

Photo credit: dbking

Sara Bernard is a former staff writer and multimedia producer for Edutopia magazine.
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