(-- The Beacon)
By Will Lyons
"The University, in its educational policies, programs and procedures, provides equal opportunity for all its students without regard to race, color, religion, sex, age, national or ethnic origin or disability," the University of Portland's nondiscrimination clause states.
Notice anything missing?
The nondiscrimination clause does not protect sexual orientation. It seems odd and frankly ridiculous that UP doesn't have this security clearly enumerated in its very easily accessible nondiscrimination clause. (It's in the Frequently Asked Questions on UP's website).
The final repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" on Sept. 20 made me reflect on homosexuality at UP. In much the same way that homosexual soldiers felt the need to keep their preferences, opinions and personal lives to themselves under DADT, I would wager that being a homosexual student at UP, a Catholic school, which doesn't include sexual orientation in it's minority protections, must make life difficult, or at least uncomfortable.
In many other colleges and universities throughout Oregon and the rest of the country, sexual orientation is covered as a protected minority. Portland State University includes sexual orientation, as does the University of Oregon as well as all the schools in the California State University system.
You may be thinking to yourself, "Well, UP is a Catholic school, there's no way that a Catholic University could possibly allow sexual orientation to be covered as a protection."
Check this out: Gonzaga University, the University of San Francisco, Loyola Marymount, St. Mary's and a host of other Catholic schools also include sexual orientation as a protected minority position. So why doesn't UP?
I believe a major reason for the lack of protection at UP is the omnipresent donor. Many of the investors and people who write big checks to UP (many of them priests, ex-military personnel, general conservatives, etc.) probably wouldn't be happy to have sexual orientation included in our nondiscrimination clause.
Unfortunately in the meantime, because the school continually needs money for the RISE Campaign and future buildings, we're left with this archaic and embarrassing lack of protection in our school doctrine. I hate knowing my university is still living pre- 1960s in terms of its civil rights.
Concerned faculty, staff, students and administrators have raised the issue again and again for years, but the clear-cut facts of the argument have become befuddled and somewhat confusing.
Fr. Bill Beauchamp C.S.C., said at a meeting with The Beacon staff earlier this year that for legal reasons, the University couldn't include sexual orientation directly in the nondiscrimination clause. UP has a "spirit of inclusion" to ensure no student will be kicked out or punished for openly being homosexual.
I do applaud the University for filing down the teeth on a nondiscrimination policy, which if taken at face value implies that UP could go as far as expelling a student should word get around that he or she were homosexual.
Spirit of inclusion aside, homosexuals are receiving less than equal treatment in the issue of being protected at UP. They deserve the same protections that all other minorities receive in our nondiscrimination clause. Not only is it a matter of principle, but I'm sure that a "spirit of inclusion" isn't as powerful in terms of holding onto legal rights as a student and a human being as a nondiscrimination clause does.
If there is someone in the UP community who can articulate why these protections aren't in place on The Bluff while they are in virtually every other aspect of society, I would love to hear their arguments. Also, if this is new or old information to you and it makes you half as angry as it makes me, let your voice be heard. Change begins one voice at a time.
