Friday, December 3, 2010
Education City Paper: Belmont Rebuffs LGBT/Straight Student Group
Posted by Jim Ridley on Fri, Dec 3, 2010 at 11:52 AM
At the CP, William Williams suggests that Belmont's treatment of Coach Lisa Howe may be part of a larger institutional antipathy toward gay and lesbian students:
For roughly a year, students in an LGBT group and their straight classmates have pushed Belmont officials for status as a recognized student organization — and twice they’ve been rejected. Now the students, who work under the name Bridge Builders and have about 1,000 student signatures on a petition of support, are pointing to the early January arrival of incoming university provost Thomas Burns as a moment of truth.
Elsewhere, it gets better, to coin a phrase. Dan Savage has posted the Belmont fiasco at SLOG, and he seized upon some language in the university's self-description that's about to bite Belmont's hiney in a big way:
Belmont University is a student-centered Christian community providing an academically challenging education that empowers men and women of diverse backgrounds [emphasis ours] to engage and transform the world with disciplined intelligence, compassion, courage and faith.
Savage also helpfully provided contact info for Belmont President Robert Fisher and athletics director Michael Strickland. Sez our hat-tipper: "Bob Fisher's email is looking pretty colorful at the moment, I bet." No doubt.
UPDATE, 9:48 p.m.: This comment on the Jezebel website indicates today's flap is probably the tip of the iceberg.
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