Panel affirms support for gay students

Annie K Cocke
Contributing Writer

VCU is working to provide a supportive environment for LGBT students so they don’t face the harassment that has led to suicides at other colleges, university officials said this week.

They affirmed their commitment to diversity at a forum Monday addressing the concerns to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered communities.

“You can’t be anything but who you are,” Ed Grier, dean of the VCU School of Business, said. “Embrace everyone.”

Speakers at the forum, held by VCU’s Office of Multicultural Student Affairs, also included former Provost Stephen Gottfredson and state Sen. Donald McEachin, D–Henrico. Topics included the recent string of suicides by young people who were taunted because of their sexual orientation, like Tyler Clementi of Rutgers University who killed himself after a video of him was posted on the Internet.

“Invasions of privacy are never to be condoned,” Gottfredson said. “The bullies showed grotesque insensitivity.”

At the forum, Grier and Gottfredson said members of the VCU community should educate themselves about LGBT issues and broadcast that they are allies for LGBT students.

Some members of the audience want VCU to go even further: to open an LGBT resource center on campus or in the community.

Monday’s forum, held in the Student Commons, was the latest in a series sparked by a legal opinion that Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli issued last spring. Cuccinelli told VCU and other state universities to rescind their anti-discrimination policies protecting gay and lesbian students. After protests by students and others, state officials backed off that opinion.

Gottfredson said a “lack of understanding” about diversity can interfere with “creative expression” and a “free and open exchange with one another.”

“Diversity has an impact on the feeling of the campus, academic growth and overall student involvement,” Gottfredson said. “The environment in which we live is multi-diverse in lots of ways.”

Building relationships is key to understanding one another and being more tolerant, McEachin said.

“Politicians lead you to believe that their stances are strictly ‘politics’ and that they are not reflections of their personal opinions,” McEachin said. But he added, “In the General Assembly, the work we do is intensely personal.”

He said change occurs when you form a relationship with the politician you vote for, and that you must be mobile to enact change.

“What matters is that you and I – we – are on the right side of victory,” McEachin said. “Do as you do, and help bend things toward justice.”

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