Emporia State panel: Add sexual orientation

Special to The Capital-Journal

EMPORIA -- Emporia State University administrators were urged this week to include sexual orientation in the school's nondiscrimination policy.

The discussion was organized as part of ESU's educational programming on sexual orientation that was launched by the president's office after sexual orientation was removed from ESU's affirmative action policy last semester. Each of the four discussion panelists criticized the ESU administration for removing sexual orientation from the affirmative action policy. "There is a difference between not having sexual orientation (in a policy) to begin with and revoking sexual orientation from a nondiscriminatory policy," said Kelly Brown, a panelist who is a Topeka-based lawyer whose practice focuses on such issues. "(Revoking sexual orientation) is extremely rare and it looks horrible. It looks like a step back, and it is." Brown said some of the legal reasons to include sexual orientation in a nondiscriminatory policy include Title IX, a federal requirement that schools have an anti-harassment policy dealing with sexual harassment as well as other forms of harassment. Also, the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution is supposed to protect against sexual orientation discrimination and harassment, Brown said. The Supreme Court has used Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause to force schools to prohibit and confront sexual orientation discrimination. "Universities should bring sexual orientation in a nondiscrimination policy because it is the right thing to do and the fiscally sound thing to do," Brown said. "It's cheaper in the short run for schools to include simple procedures to deal with sexual orientation discrimination and cheaper in the short run to provide training to students." Panelist Ben Zimmerman, professor emeritus of the University of Kansas who was influential in the addition of sexual orientation into Lawrence's human relations ordinance, said a university should add sexual orientation to its affirmative action policy. "If there is any institutional policy where sexual orientation is absent, the university puts themselves at risk," said panelist Maurice Bryan Jr., an assistant in KU's office of equal opportunity. Panelist Christine Robinson, a KU sociology doctoral student and active member of many gay and lesbian organizations, said it is important to include sexual orientation in a nondiscriminatory policy "to provide formal authority to the university to handle discrimination claims and to encourage recruitment of some the most qualified faculty members who happened to be gay, lesbian or bisexual." Currently, a task force appointed by ESU president Kay Schallenkamp is working on a nondiscriminatory statement outside of the affirmative action policy to be completed by Jan. 31.

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